Reinier de Ridder’s coach Harun Ozkan has explained why he decided to throw in the towel after the fourth round of his main event fight with Brendan Allen at UFC FIght Night 262 in Vancouver on Saturday night.

The 35-year-old de Ridder had come into the fight propelled by the momentum of a four-fight winning start to his time in the UFC, and got off to a good start by taking down and controlling Allen in the opening round.

However, as time went on it was Allen who was able to get the upper-hand on the mat and began to wear down de Ridder’s energy reserves to the point that he struggled to stand back up at the end of the third round.

When an exhausted RDR took even longer to return to his feet at the end of the fourth round his corner decided to bring an end to the fight before the final five minute spell coudl begin.

“Friends, fans, and supporters,” Ozkan wrote on social media.

“I normally don’t share personal things on here, but I feel I owe a little explanation to everyone who’s been behind us. First of all, thank you for the amazing support we’ve been receiving. It’s been a crazy and busy year so far.

“Last night didn’t go as we wanted. 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.

“I absolutely do not care about pleasing others if it comes at the cost of someone’s health. 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.”

It’s worth noting that this wasn’t a one-off thing for de Ridder as the former two-division ONE FC champion actually lost one of those belts in similar circumstances as recently as March of 2024.

Having already lost his light-heavyweight title to Anatoly Malykhin by KO in December of 2022, RDR had now been going up against him in a rematch with the middleweight title on the line on this occasion.

De Ridder suffered a lot of punishment in the fight, and just over a minute into the third round he appeared to have no energy left as he struggled to get back to his feet after his opponent stood up, leading to the referee waving off the fight.

That could have just been chalked up as a bad night at the office, but with late replacement Allen now having exposed the same weakness, de Ridder now must resolve his cardio issues if he was any hopes of fighting his way back into the title reckoning at 185lbs.