Luke Rockhold vs Joe Pyfer Booked for RAF 13 Wrestling Card

Luke Rockhold's grappling experiment isn't over yet. Real American Freestyle confirmed Sunday that the former UFC middleweight champion will face top-15 middleweight Joe Pyfer in a catchweight bout at RAF 13 on Sept. 19 at the Watsco Center in Miami. It's Rockhold's second appearance on the promotion's mats, and his first came with a rough result.

Back in January at RAF 5, Rockhold got tech-falled by Colby Covington — not a shock, given that Rockhold's wrestling pedigree tops out at high school and community college before he pivoted to grappling and MMA. He retired from cage fighting in 2022 and has spent the years since bouncing between combat-sports formats. A pure freestyle bout was never going to play to his strengths, and the scoreboard said as much.

The Better Wrestler? Maybe Not

Pyfer arrives on similar footing, at least on paper. His wrestling background is also mostly high school, with some professional grappling mixed in, so this reads as a stylistic coin-flip rather than a clear mismatch. What separates him is momentum: Pyfer sits at No. 9 in MMA Fighting's Global middleweight rankings and is coming off a knockout of former champ Israel Adesanya at UFC Seattle in March. This is his RAF debut.

For Rockhold, the appeal is obvious — a name opponent, a marquee card, and a chance to erase the memory of the Covington loss. For RAF, pairing two ex-UFC middleweight names on the same event is exactly the kind of crossover the promotion has leaned on since launch.

What Else Is on the Card

RAF 13 is slated to be headlined by a cruiserweight crossover grudge match between Colby Covington and Belal Muhammad, the reigning welterweight rivals who genuinely can't stand each other. Muhammad, ranked #7 at welterweight with a 24-6 record, is coming off a decision loss to Gabriel Bonfim. Covington, now unranked and 17-5, last appeared in the UFC for a doctor's-stoppage loss to Joaquin Buckley.

Elsewhere in the RAF ecosystem, co-founder Chad Bronstein said he expects Dillon Danis back after the Khamzat Chimaev brawl, Bo Nickal meets Shirvani Muradov at RAF Moscow on Sept. 5, and Henry Cejudo and Merab Dvalishvili are set to run it back at RAF 12. Whether Rockhold-Pyfer produces fireworks or just another grind, it slots neatly into a card built on familiar faces.