Reinier de Ridder admits he may have punched over his weight as he recounts loss to Anatoly Malykhin

Reinier de Ridder believes he may have bitten off a bit more than he could chew against two-division world titleholder Anatoly Malykhin.

On March 1, ‘The Dutch Knight’ will look for a bit of redemption when he runs it back with the Russian juggernaut in the ONE 166: Qatar headliner. The last time the two men met, de Ridder surrendered his ONE light heavyweight MMA world championship after suffering a brutal first-round knockout. It was the first loss of his MMA career.

This time, Reinier de Ridder will put his last remaining belt — the ONE middleweight MMA world championship — but looking back, the Dutchman recognizes that he may have been a tad too ambitious fighting Anatoly Malykhin

“This is just how fights go,” de Ridder said in a short documentary produced by Threepeat Media. “I step in a cage, I see the guy on the other side. I walk to him, take him down, choke him out. That’s just how it works."

“That’s just how fights would go until they didn’t go like that. I was training with heavyweight and I was doing my thing as well so I was like, ‘F*ck it. Let’s see if I can go even further.’”

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Reinier de Ridder ready to deny Anatoly Malykhin a history-making moment

Since taking Reinier de Ridder’s light heavyweight title, Anatoly Malykhin traded in his interim heavyweight MMA belt for undisputed gold, KO’ing the division’s former king, Arjan Bhullar, in a world title unification clash at ONE Friday Fights 22 in June.

If ‘Sladkiy’ manages to score yet another win against ‘The Dutch Knight’ inside Lusail Sports Arena, he will make history by becoming ONE Championship’s first and only simultaneous three-division world champion.

Will Malykhin do what no man before him has done, or will de Ridder retain his middleweight title and even the series with his Russian foe?

ONE 166: Qatar goes down at Lusail Sports Arena and is available live and free to all Prime Video subscribers in North America.