A brand-new freestyle wrestling league landed in Tbilisi on July 11, and the card doubled as a reminder that some of the toughest grapplers in combat sports right now built their games on a wrestling mat long before they ever stepped into a cage.
Reviewed by BJJ Gyms · Updated 2026-07-27
Compiled from USA Wrestling's event recap and Yahoo Sports' round-by-round coverage of RAF Georgia, July 11, 2026.
Real American Freestyle bills itself as an unscripted, straight-up wrestling promotion, no acting required, and its eleventh card was also its first held outside the United States. The promotion picked Tbilisi Sports Palace in Georgia for the occasion, a fitting choice given the region's deep wrestling culture, and stacked the card with twelve matches spanning multiple weight classes and several Olympic medalists.
The undercard alone read like a wrestling fan's dream sheet: two-time world champion Geno Petriashvili wrestling in front of a home crowd, four-time world champion Kyle Dake defending his cruiserweight belt, and a mix of decorated internationals filling out nearly every weight class on the card.
The night's headline match paired Merab Dvalishvili, the current UFC bantamweight champion, against Henry Cejudo, the 2008 Olympic gold medalist who has also held UFC gold at two different weights. Cejudo came out fast, stringing together scoring sequences that put him well ahead through the first period, and for a few minutes it looked like the freestyle specialist would simply out-wrestle the MMA champion at his own sport.
Dvalishvili had other plans. He found his rhythm in the second period, chipping away at the deficit with a takedown that got the crowd on its feet, then took the lead outright in the third before adding insurance points to close out an 11-8 win. It was Dvalishvili's second career win over Cejudo, having also beaten him by decision inside the Octagon two years earlier.
Afterward, Dvalishvili kept his reaction short and heartfelt, thanking the crowd and saying he was proud to represent his people, a nod to competing in a region with deep ties to his native Georgia.
Two matches down the card, UFC lightweight contender Arman Tsarukyan needed only two periods to run away with a tech-fall win, a lopsided scoreline that underlined just how far ahead of most opponents his wrestling still is even while he balances a full UFC training camp schedule. Watching a ranked UFC fighter step outside the cage and immediately look just as dominant on a wrestling mat is a useful reminder of where a lot of MMA's best top control and scrambling actually gets built.
On the women's side, five-time world and Olympic champion Helen Maroulis retained her bantamweight title by decision, extending her unbeaten run at RAF events to three straight appearances. Kyle Snyder, an Olympic and multiple-time world champion himself, closed out the light heavyweight title match by converting a single-leg takedown directly into a fall late in regulation, a finish that would look right at home ending a jiu-jitsu match just as easily as a wrestling one.
Freestyle wrestling and jiu-jitsu score differently and reward different finishes, but the underlying skills overlap more than most fans realize: hip positioning, hand fighting, and the ability to scramble back to a dominant angle after giving one up are exactly what separates a good grappler from a great one in either sport. Watching Dvalishvili claw back from an early deficit or Tsarukyan blow through a tech fall is really watching the same instincts that a white belt starts building on day one of BJJ fundamentals class.
None of these athletes started as MMA fighters. Every one of them logged years on a wrestling mat first, which is the same argument a lot of coaches make for cross-training in jiu-jitsu even for people who have no interest in ever competing: it builds a physical vocabulary that carries over into almost every other combat sport. If a night like this made you want to feel what that base actually feels like, a trial class at a local BJJ gym is the fastest way to find out.
Beyond the headline matches, the card was loaded with Olympic and world-level pedigree. Here's a quick guide to who else wrestled and how they did.
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It's a newer professional wrestling league built around real, competitive freestyle matches rather than scripted entertainment. RAF Georgia on July 11, 2026 was its first event held outside the United States.
Yes. This win made it back-to-back victories for Dvalishvili over Cejudo, following a decision win between the two inside the UFC Octagon roughly two years earlier.
Because wrestling and jiu-jitsu share a huge overlap in fundamentals like hip control, hand fighting, and scrambling, and many of MMA's best grapplers built their base on a wrestling mat before ever training BJJ.
Not at all. A wrestling background helps, but BJJ gyms teach positional control and takedown fundamentals from scratch, which is exactly why so many complete beginners start with zero grappling experience.