With Sean Strickland still recovering and no UFC rematch date on the books, Chimaev is headlining Real American Freestyle's Russian debut against former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley on September 5.
Reviewed by BJJ Gyms · Updated 2026-08-01
Figures drawn from Yahoo Sports' and MMA Sucka's July 30, 2026 reporting on the RAF Moscow announcement.
Chimaev beat Sean Strickland for the UFC middleweight title, and by his own account he has been ready to run it back ever since. The problem is timing. Strickland is still working through recovery from that fight, and the promotion has not attached a date to a rematch, leaving Chimaev, a three-time Swedish national freestyle wrestling champion, sitting on a title with no title fight scheduled.
Rather than wait around, he has leaned back into Real American Freestyle, the wrestling promotion he already competed for once this year, when he pinned Dillon Danis in St. Louis in a match that ended with a post-fight brawl. Staying busy on the wrestling mat while a cage rematch is negotiated is not a new playbook for him, but doing it in Moscow, in front of a home country crowd, raises the stakes on what would otherwise be an exhibition.
Tyron Woodley is not a novelty opponent here. Before he ever set foot in the UFC, the 44-year-old wrestled at the University of Missouri, where he earned All-American honors twice and won a conference title, and that base is exactly what made him a two-time UFC welterweight title defender built around control and takedowns rather than volume striking.
What makes this booking unusual is the calendar. Woodley is set to fight Joaquin Buckley at RAF 12 in Cleveland on August 22, then turn around and face Chimaev in Moscow on September 5, a stretch of less than two weeks between two live combat sports appearances against very different styles of opponent.
Buried a little under the Chimaev headline is Anatoly Malykhin's RAF debut against Pouya Rahmani. Malykhin is a former three-division ONE Championship titleholder, a heavyweight, light heavyweight, and cruiserweight champion, coming in with a 15-1 record, and he is stepping onto a wrestling mat against an undefeated 6-0 heavyweight in Rahmani.
It is the kind of matchup that would headline plenty of other RAF cards, and its presence here says something about how quickly the promotion has become a landing spot for name fighters looking to compete outside their usual rule set while contract situations elsewhere sort themselves out.
Wrestling bases keep showing up as the difference-maker across combat sports, from Chimaev's own MMA success to Woodley's title reigns built on top control. That is exactly why jiu-jitsu gyms that take wrestling seriously, and no-gi systems like 10th Planet that build scramble-heavy positional games around it, keep producing well-rounded grapplers rather than one-dimensional ones.
You do not need a Moscow arena to test any of that. Walking into a local BJJ or no-gi gym and asking whether they cross-train takedowns and wrestling fundamentals alongside guard work is a fair question to ask before signing up, and most gyms will let you try a class first to see how it fits.
Here is the quick version of what is actually being booked and why it matters.
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September 5, 2026, in Moscow, headlining Real American Freestyle's first event in Russia.
No. It's a freestyle wrestling match under the Real American Freestyle banner, separate from Chimaev's UFC middleweight title picture.
Strickland is still recovering from their last fight and no rematch date has been set, which is part of why Chimaev booked this match.
Anatoly Malykhin, a former three-division ONE Championship titleholder, steps into RAF for the first time opposite Pouya Rahmani, an undefeated heavyweight, in the co-main slot.