Osamah Almarwai is leaving no stone unturned on his mission to dethrone ONE flyweight submission grappling world champion Mikey Musumeci.
The Yemeni has the opportunity to do just that when he travels to 1STBANK Center in Colorado to compete at “ONE Fight Night 10: Johnson vs. Moraes III” on Prime Video, the promotion’s historic U.S. debut event on May 5.
Almarwai has been training hard at Atos Jiu-Jitsu in his pursuit of victory. The San Diego-based team is spearheaded by fourth-degree black belt Andre Galvao and headlined by his star pupils Kade and Tye Ruotolo.
A happy fighter is a dangerous fighter, and Almarwai – the first black-belt IBJJF world champion from the Middle East – is certainly enjoying his preparations to become the latest Atos-trained world champion.
“Man, it’s very fun (at Atos). Everybody has a good vibe. But at the same time, it’s very hard training. I remember when I won in 2019 my ADCC camp, I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ They were just going hard. I know that’s what I needed to win,” he said.
“I’ll sometimes look around the room, and you see world champions everywhere. A lot of them are in black belt. It’s super hard to make one black-belt world champion. But Galvao was able to make so many black belt world champions. So, I know that Galvao had the recipe to make world champions. All I had to do was just show up and train.
“It’s hard training. It’s fun. We support each other. We always exchange knowledge. And I love it there, man. I love it.”
When it comes to preparing for a ONE Championship submission grappling tilt, you’d be hard-pressed to find better training parters than the Ruotolo twins.
Kade is the reigning ONE lightweight submission grappling world champion, while Tye has pulled off two thrilling submission wins in the ONE circle and is currently preparing for a showdown of his own at ONE Fight Night 10 – against ONE’s MMA middleweight world champion Reinier de Ridder, who coincidentally grappled Galvao last year.
The 20-year-old grappling phenoms have been putting 31-year-old Almarwai through his paces, even when they were up-and-coming prospects.
“Every single day, they help me. They’re very outgoing. They’re super nice kids, I love training with them. They helped me so much. Even when they were blue belts, I remember when they joined Atos. They were blue belts. I was like, ‘Man, these kids are good,’” he recalled.
“They made me feel bad because I was a brown belt at the time. And man, they were very good. And then I remember Tye was doing so well in the ADCC. I don’t feel bad anymore because he beat some top-level black belts. These kids are good.”
But don’t let their relative youth fool you: Kade and Tye are lifelong Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioners.
According to Almarwai, their experience shows in training and the young superstars are more than willing to share their expertise.
In fact, he may even bring some Ruotolo-esque tricks to the ONE circle when he challenges Musumeci for the ONE flyweight submission grappling world title on May 5.
“They’ve been doing it since they were, I think, 3 years old. The knowledge they have in jiu-jitsu is like, you ask them about any position, and they’ll just give you so much knowledge. It’s amazing to be around them because they help everyone,” he said.
“I like the Ruotolos’ style. They’re always going for the submissions. I love their style. I try to imitate some of their styles sometimes.”
