Tye Ruotolo Submits Christian Lee in 128 Seconds to Win ONE Lightweight Title

Tye Ruotolo turned Christian Lee’s return into a title-changing finish: a crisp combination put the champion on the canvas, and a rear-naked choke ended the fight 128 seconds after it began. Lee leaves Bangkok with his welterweight championship, but his second run atop ONE Championship’s lightweight division is over.

The result lands with extra weight because Lee had spent the days before the November 6 fight talking up a potential matchup with Islam Makhachev. Lee said he wanted to challenge Makhachev for the welterweight belt and believed he could match the UFC champion in every phase. Against Ruotolo, though, the immediate test was a grappling threat that became decisive almost at once.

Ruotolo made the opening count

Lee had not competed in almost a year when he stepped into The Inner Circle 37 in Bangkok, Thailand. Ruotolo, a jiu-jitsu standout who has recently moved into MMA, brought a different kind of pressure into the contest: the opportunity to turn his grappling reputation into a championship result.

He did not need a prolonged ground exchange to get there. Ruotolo first landed the combination that knocked Lee down, then secured the rear-naked choke for the submission. The sequence left little room for Lee to settle into the fight or test the striking and wrestling confidence he had described before the event.

That speed is the central point of the upset. Lee is widely regarded as one of the strongest MMA fighters competing outside the UFC, and he had already held both the lightweight and welterweight titles in ONE. Yet the challenger’s ability to connect on the feet and immediately turn the knockdown into a finish made the title defense a short test of how quickly Ruotolo could impose his preferred fight.

ONE Championship marked the finish as a first-round submission and announced Ruotolo as the new lightweight MMA world champion. The result came just over two minutes into the bout, at 128 seconds.

A sharp change in Lee’s title picture

Lee’s loss ends a lightweight reign that followed an earlier setback in the division. Five years before this fight, Ok Rae Yoon took the title from him. Lee later reclaimed the championship and most recently defended it by knocking out Alibeg Rasulov. The Ruotolo fight now brings another abrupt change to a division Lee had returned to the top of.

His two-belt status has also changed. Lee became a double champion in November 2022, stopping Kiamrian Abbasov in the fourth round at ONE on Prime Video 4 to win the 185-pound welterweight title. That belt remains his; the lightweight championship does not. The distinction matters because Lee’s pre-fight comments centered on a possible move toward Makhachev, while the loss forces attention back to the belt he has just surrendered and the path to another run at it.

Lee’s recent schedule offers another part of the picture. Since winning titles in two divisions, he has not fought more than once in a calendar year. That limited pace means the next step in his career could depend heavily on when he returns and which division he chooses to prioritize. The source provides no next opponent or timetable, so those questions remain open.

Ruotolo’s MMA credentials grow quickly

For Ruotolo, this is a striking addition to a career built first in grappling. He has now claimed MMA gold in Asia’s largest organization only three fights into his MMA career. His brother, Kade Ruotolo, is 4-0 in MMA and has earned bonuses in three of those wins. The brothers’ move from grappling into MMA is producing notable results, though Tye’s title win stands on its own: he beat an established champion with a finish that began on the feet and ended on the ground.

Lee’s confidence about Makhachev was a prominent part of the build-up, but it doesn’t decide what comes next. Ruotolo’s performance does: the new champion has shown he can create danger before the fight reaches an extended grappling exchange, then convert a knockdown into a submission. Lee, meanwhile, retains the welterweight title and will have to rebuild his lightweight position if he wants another chance at two-division status.

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