Reinier de Ridder walked into UFC Vancouver one strong win away from a potential title shot. He left with a disappointing loss to Brendan Allen that saw his coaches throw in the towel after their fighter was so exhausted he couldn’t get off the stool for the fifth round.
It was a total collapse, and de Ridder took to X (formerly Twitter) to explain the situation to his fans.
“Devastated by the loss,” he wrote. “Battled norovirus all week, could hardly stand, and broke my hand in Round 1, making it
tough to fight. Gave everything I had.”
De Ridder’s coach Harun Ozkan took ownership of the decision to throw in the towel and shared why he did it in a lengthy statement on Instagram.
“Last night didn’t go as we wanted,” Ozkan wrote. “After a very strong start in the first round, things quickly started fading and we couldn’t really recover from the shots in and after the second round. I made the call to stop the fight after the fourth round. I take full responsibility for that decision and it was the right call to make for me in the moment. It’s not a decision I ever wanted to make, but I guess sometimes you have to.”
“My job is to coach, but also to look out for my fighter’s health. I’ve been with Reinier for basically his whole career and saw too many signs that made me step in. If I didn’t do anything, he would’ve continued the fight. Rather than risk unnecessary damage, I decided to call it a day and go home as healthy as possible. Live to fight another day.”
The call has led to a lot of fans (and some fighters) throwing a lot of hate Team de Ridder’s way, but that doesn’t bother Reinier’s coach.
“I absolutely do not care about pleasing others if it comes at the cost of someone’s health,” he said. “There’s a thin line between ‘being tough’ and watching out for your health. This sport can be brutal. These guys sacrifice a lot of their life in and out of the cage. There’s no need for excess damage if it can be avoided. Most people forget they’re human too.”
“Zero excuses for this loss, we knew what we were going for. We are not happy with this performance, but for now recovery first, evaluate some stuff and we will be back next year. It has been an amazing year overall and thankful for all the highs and lows in life. Proud of you my brother Reinier. We’ve come a long way.”
The loss drops de Ridder to 4-1 in the UFC and 21-3 in MMA. Hopefully he’ll have a chance to compete healthy soon and erase the memory of this one from everyone’s minds.
