Reinier de Ridder had moments of doubt about his future after UFC Vancouver.

De Ridder, a former two-division champion at ONE, made waves immediately after signing with the UFC in 2024, winning his first four fights, including a victory over former champion Robert Whittaker. “The Dutch Knight” found himself on the cusp of a title shot, but it all fell apart in October when Brendan All stopped “RDR” at UFC Vancouver.

Afterwards, much was made of De Ridder’s collapse during the fight when he ran out of gas early in the fight, and speaking to the media during UFC 326 Media Day, “RDR” acknowledged that fighting five times in 11 months took a toll on his body.

“On every level, my blood work, everything was in the trash,” de Ridder said of his medical evaluations after UFC Vancouver. “Everything was bad. But what stood out the most was the severe anemia, a very, very low red blood cell count. Basically, my body was shitting.”

In fact, things were so bad for De Ridder that he was not only affected on the night of the fight, but for a long time afterward. So much so that he began to wonder if this would be the end of his fighting career.

“At least I knew what was happening to me at the time,” de Ridder said of his evaluation. “I was very happy with it. I had something to work with. But it took me a long time to get my body back, get everything started, get the right treatment and figure it all out. That wasn’t easy. So, there were a couple of weeks there, [where] I couldn’t complete a training session, I couldn’t climb stairs without getting tired. So I was thinking for a while, ‘I might never fix this.’ It could be over.’”

But despite the difficulties this caused, de Ridder admits that if he were in the same situation again, he would probably do the same thing.

“With the opportunity there, I’ll most likely make the same dumb decision to fight again, because it was too cool,” de Ridder said. “I was on a roll. I knew my body wasn’t there, but I figured if I could get it out of there in the first round, and I was close, then we wouldn’t be talking about my health right now.”

Fortunately, de Ridder’s health problems appear to be resolved now. He returns to action this weekend against Caio Borralho in the co-main event of UFC 326 in Las Vegas.