ONE Championship: Reinier De Ridder ‘biting off more than he can chew’ with Brandon Vera callout, says Aung La N Sang
- Double titleholder De Ridder is looking to add a third belt to his collection after taking N Sang’s light heavyweight crown at ONE on TNT 4
- ‘Brandon’s a bad match-up for him,’ warns ‘The Burmese Python’, who trains with Vera at Sanford MMA
Reinier De Ridder called out ONE Championship heavyweight king Brandon Vera after adding Aung La N Sang’s light heavyweight title to his collection on Thursday morning with a dominant unanimous decision.
The undefeated Dutchman (14-0) – who also took the middleweight title from “The Burmese Python” last October in Singapore – is looking to claim an unprecedented hat-trick of world championships in the Asian promotion.
But the 35-year-old former double champ (26-12) insists De Ridder might be making a mistake going after his Sanford MMA training partner Vera (16-8), whom N Sang successfully defended the light heavyweight title against with a second-round TKO in October 2019.
“Brandon’s a bad match-up for him,” N Sang said on a post-event media scrum. “He’s got great takedown defence. I train with Brandon now.
“If you remember he did the Greco wrestling almost at an Olympic level, Olympic trials. His build is just as tall as him. So stylistically I don’t think it’s a good match-up for Reinier, and Reinier is biting off more than he can chew.”