Khamzat Chimaev vs. Tyron Woodley Headlines RAF Moscow Grappling Card

Khamzat Chimaev returns to the RAF grappling promotion this Saturday at VTB Arena, and he's brought a familiar name onto the mats with him. The reigning UFC middleweight champion, 15-1 with six knockouts and six submissions inside the Octagon and ranked #1 at 185, takes on former UFC welterweight titleholder Tyron Woodley in the RAF Moscow main event.

It's Chimaev's second RAF outing after a pinfall win over Dillon Danis back in June. Woodley arrives with a bit more momentum than his UFC exit suggested — he beat Joaquin Buckley in his own RAF debut, and that result snapped a stretch that ran all the way back to 2018 as his first combat win of any kind since. Two ex-champions, both hunting relevance on a surface that isn't the cage.

The Co-Main Draw

The undercard leans heavily on Olympic wrestling pedigree. Abdulrashid Sadulaev, a two-time freestyle gold medalist from 2016 and 2020, meets Zac Braunagel in the co-main. Sadulaev's RAF debut in July didn't go his way — Kyle Snyder pinned him at RAF Georgia to extend one of the sport's great rivalries, and Snyder is back Saturday against Akhmed Tazhudinov for the light heavyweight championship.

Kennedy Blades faces Vusala Parfianovich for the middleweight title, while Jordan Burroughs and Kyle Dake add more mat credentials to the bill. There's crossover appeal too: former two-division ONE champ Anatoly Malykhin and ex-Bellator standout Neiman Gracie both feature, with Gracie drawing UFC's Shara Magomedov.

What's at Stake for the UFC Names

Bo Nickal is the other Octagon fighter to watch. The #14 middleweight sits at 9-1 in the UFC with a split of four KOs and four submissions, but his last RAF trip ended in defeat to 2026 NCAA champion Max McEnelly — a reminder that Nickal's collegiate wrestling reputation doesn't guarantee wins against decorated purists.

For Chimaev, this is essentially a low-stakes flex against a name most fans know. He hasn't lost a UFC fight cleanly in ages, though his only setback on record was a split-decision reversal to Sean Strickland. Woodley, meanwhile, gets another chance to prove the wrestling foundation that carried him to a UFC title still holds up. Whether either man learns anything useful about their MMA future is beside the point — this is spectacle, and Chimaev is the draw.