Kade Ruotolo

Kade Ruotolo was 19 when he won the 2022 ADCC in Las Vegas and became the youngest champion in the event’s history. At 77 kg he submitted all four opponents: Lachlan Giles, Roberto Jimenez, PJ Barch and, in the final, Mica Galvão, with a heel hook.

Born in Maui, Hawaii, on January 22, 2003, and raised in Huntington Beach, California, he has trained since childhood alongside his twin brother, Tye. The two came up at Atos under André Galvão, who gave both of them their black belts on December 14, 2021. Before that, Kade had already won IBJJF world titles as a juvenile, in 2019, and as a brown belt, in 2021.

In October 2022, a month after ADCC, he won the ONE Championship lightweight submission grappling title by beating Uali Kurzhev. He defended it three times, against Matheus Gabriel and twice against Tommy Langaker. In 2024 he skipped ADCC to enter the Craig Jones Invitational and won the under-80 kg bracket, which paid $1 million to the champion, beating Matheus Diniz, Langaker, Andrew Tackett and, in the final, Levi Jones-Leary.

In MMA, also with ONE, he has four wins in four fights. In February 2025 he submitted Argentina’s Nicolas Vigna with an arm-triangle choke in the first round, in Qatar. On May 15, 2026, in Bangkok, he knocked out Japan’s Hiroyuki Tetsuka in the second round. Left off the 2026 ADCC invite list, he remains ONE’s grappling champion, and a rematch with Mica Galvão is still one of the matches fans ask for most.