Reinier de Ridder Stops Roman Dolidze in Round 1 at UFC Sacramento
Reinier de Ridder stopped Roman Dolidze by TKO at 4:01 of Round 1 in his UFC light heavyweight debut. The Dutch former ONE champion flattened Dolidze with a barrage of strikes on the UFC Sacramento main card at Golden 1 Center.
The official result at UFC Fight Night: Hernandez vs. Rodrigues was a TKO by strikes. De Ridder improved to 22-4. Dolidze fell to 15-6.
The numbers explain why the finish looked one-sided. De Ridder landed 71 of 83 significant strikes and 106 of 119 total strikes. Dolidze was 1 of 4 in significant strikes and 4 of 8 overall.
There were no knockdowns, no takedowns, and no submission attempts on the graphic. The stoppage came from volume on the ground after Dolidze pulled guard and chased leg locks.
UFC.com described it as a statement first outing at 205 pounds. Once de Ridder cleared the legs, he never let Dolidze off the canvas.
That is the version of “RDR” who arrived from ONE Championship and beat Robert Whittaker and Bo Nickal at middleweight. Consecutive losses at 185 then pushed him out of the title picture and, by his own account, drained the fun from the sport.
He made the cut to 185 five times in one year before moving up. Saturday was his first UFC fight at light heavyweight, and it lasted one round.
The caption calling him a new contender at 205 is the bet he made before the fight. De Ridder said a spectacular finish would skip him past the usual waiting line.
“At 205, I think if I do well in this way and put Roman away spectacularly, I’ll fight a top 10 guy next,” de Ridder told CBS Sports.
He got the spectacular part. Carlos Ulberg holds the UFC light heavyweight title after knocking out Jiri Prochazka in April, and the official rankings still start with Alex Pereira, Magomed Ankalaev, and Prochazka.
De Ridder is not in that top 10 yet. A first-round TKO over Dolidze, a former middleweight who also moved up, is a debut, not a title claim.
It is, however, the kind of tape that forces a ranking conversation. An 85.5 percent significant-strike clip and a 4:01 finish do not look like a cautious move up in weight.
Dolidze’s early choice to pull guard played into de Ridder’s hands. The Georgian never got the fight into a scramble long enough to use the power that made him dangerous at 185.
The Reinier de Ridder TKO does not book a fight with Ulberg. It does put a 6-foot-4 grappler-striker on the 205-pound radar after he spent a year grinding himself down at middleweight.
No next opponent has been announced. De Ridder asked for a top-10 name if he finished Dolidze in a hurry, and that is now the question the UFC has to answer.