The 21-year-old jiu-jitsu champion, who has recently transitioned to MMA, said he and his brother have talked about potentially making a run at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
“My brother and I, we like to talk about it because we’ve dabbled in wrestling, you know, a little high school wrestling class growing up,” Ruotolo told Helwani. “We feel like we have very strong wrestling, you know, we could wrestle with very high-level wrestlers. And we’ve never focused on it.”
Ruotolo acknowledged it would be a significant challenge, but expressed confidence in their ability to adapt quickly if they dedicated themselves to wrestling full-time.
“Obviously, I don’t think I can wrestle at that level anytime soon,” he said. “But with a lot of time given to it and dedicated to it, I think anything in the martial arts world, we could really accomplish almost anything that we put our minds to. We’re still so young. We have nothing but time.”
Ruotolo also discussed the potential for jiu-jitsu to become an Olympic sport. When asked why jiu-jitsu isn’t currently in the Olympics, Ruotolo pointed to the lack of standardization across different rule sets and formats.
“I think the main reason is there’s gi jiu-jitsu, there’s no-gi jiu-jitsu, and there are different rule sets within each side of that,” Ruotolo explained. “So there’s not just one set of rules like in MMA where it’s mostly standardized.”
The 21-year-old grappling star noted that deciding which rule set would be used for Olympic competition is a major hurdle. “Deciding which one would be run in the Olympics is the hard part – which one’s the most exciting, which one’s the most digestible for viewers,” he said.
Ruotolo also emphasized the need to make jiu-jitsu matches more exciting and action-packed to appeal to a broader audience. He pointed to his recent match at the Craig Jones Invitational as an example of the type of thrilling contest that could help push jiu-jitsu into the mainstream.
“If we have more matches like that on the big platforms, I think that’s really what’s going to help push it into mainstream [acceptance],” Ruotolo stated.
