Reinier de Ridder is yet to fully recover from his first UFC loss.
De Ridder (21-3 MMA, 4-1 UFC) was unable to make it off his stool at the end of Round 4 in his middleweight bout against Brendan Allen at UFC Fight Night 262, prompting his corner to throw the towel in. De Ridder’s body gave up on him after five fights in a calendar year.
The former two-division ONE champion is still suffering the consequences, and made a surprise revelation.
“I still feel like sh*t,” de Ridder told Submission Radio. “When I walk up the stairs, I’m out of breath. There’s a lot of information coming back from the blood work and everything, but I don’t want to be too specific because then I’ll never get a rematch.
“There are some physical stuff that are wrong, and I’m going to see if I can fix all of this before I come back. It’s something that I’ve struggled with in the past with the second (Anatoly) Malykhin fight, and I thought I fixed it, but apparently I didn’t.”
De Ridder says he started feeling the wear and tear on his body even prior to fighting Allen.
“I f*cked it up big time,” de Ridder said. “In training camp looking back, I was just pushing myself way too far. Basically the entire camp, I was feeling slow, very run down, very tired after every session, during every session. To be honest, even in the Robert (Whittaker) camp, I wasn’t even feeling like myself in the last couple of weeks.
“But I was very stubborn as a Dutchman is supposed to be, and I kept pushing myself, kept going harder and harder, and that’s what showed in the fight. I’m not sure if it was the weight cut. It must play a part because it was much harder to get down this time. But most importantly, I beat up my body up this year like crazy. I went too far. … I was so focused to finally get my title shot, and I thought I would secure it in Vancouver, so I kept pushing.”
