“Stay calm in the chaos” – Izaak Michell says he and Tye Ruotolo are similar in more ways than one when it comes to grappling

Izaak Michell, a standout from Australia, is confident that his carefully calculated yet aggressive grappling approach will lead to an intriguing encounter as he goes up against current ONE welterweight submission grappling world champion Tye Ruotolo.

On Friday night, April 5, Michell will make his debut for ONE Championship at the renowned Lumpinee Boxing Stadium in Bangkok. He will be featured on the stacked ONE Fight Night 21 event, which will be available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Izaak Michell, currently ranked as the second best 185-pound no-gi grappler in the world by FloGrappling, has the opportunity to achieve what no one else has on the world’s largest martial arts platform – defeat Tye Ruotolo. However, this will not be an easy task against the highly skilled Atos Jiu-Jitsu fighter.

In a recent interview with CountFilms, Michell shared his thoughts on his highly anticipated debut and how his style compares to Ruotolo’s in both similarities and differences.

“My fighting style is… I think I like to stay calm in the chaos and try to pick and time my shots, when and where it’s best to do it,”Michell said. “I think I’m pretty aggressive. I’m moving forward and also hunting submissions. So it’s actually quite similar to Tye, in a way.”

“Maybe I’m a little bit more conservative with some things where he likes to just throw the kitchen sink at you, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens. We both like to play on top. We both like the pass, wrestle, and back takes. So we have similar styles, but also slightly different so it’ll be interesting.”

Can Izaak Michell defy the odds and defeat BJJ prodigy Tye Ruotolo for the ONE gold?

Ever since his ONE debut in May 2022, Tye Ruotolo has established himself as one of the top BJJ practitioners in the world. In addition to achieving an IBJJF world championship title, Ruotolo made history as the first welterweight submission grappling champion in ONE.

Throughout his journey, he has defeated five consecutive opponents, including ‘The Lion Killer’ Garry Tonon, former ONE world champions Marat Gafurov and Reinier de Ridder, and lightweight standout Dagi Arslanaliev.

Will Izaak Michell pull off an upset and dethrone 21-year-old superstar Will Tye Ruotolo, or will Ruotolo add another notable name to his already impressive hit list?

North American fans of ONE Championship can tune in to watch ONE Fight Night 21 live and at no cost through Amazon Prime Video during U.S. primetime on Friday, April 5th.