{"id":18016,"date":"2026-02-24T15:04:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T15:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/2026\/02\/24\/former-ufc-champion-merab-has-signed-with-raf-and-will-debut-in-philadelphia-on-april-18\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T15:04:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T15:04:00","slug":"former-ufc-champion-merab-has-signed-with-raf-and-will-debut-in-philadelphia-on-april-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/en_us\/2026\/02\/24\/former-ufc-champion-merab-has-signed-with-raf-and-will-debut-in-philadelphia-on-april-18\/","title":{"rendered":"Former UFC champion Merab has signed with RAF and will debut in Philadelphia on April 18."},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Real American Freestyle (RAF) announced today that RAF08 will be held on Saturday, April 18, 2026 at the Liacouras Center in Philadelphia and streamed live on FOX Nation. Headlining RAF08 is former UFC bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili. He will be making his RAF debut against the opposition.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The 35-year-old \u201cMachine\u201d holds the record for the most takedowns in UFC history (119) and recently set a bantamweight record with his 14th straight win at 135 pounds. Dvalishvili (21-5) is expected to return to the Octagon later this year, but will be busy on the RAF mat until then.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">RAF08 pre-sale tickets start on Wednesday. (February 25th) General sale begins on Friday (February 27th).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cPhiladelphia is a fighting city, and the RAF is on the biggest level,\u201d said Chad Bronstein, CEO and co-founder of Real American Freestyle. \u201cMerab is elite, tenacious and deeply rooted in wrestling. Having outstanding athletes take to the RAF stage reinforces what this league stands for: a professional home for the best of sport.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">RAF&#8217;s next event is this weekend at RAF06 in Tempe, Arizona, where UFC veterans Henry Cejudo and Urijah Faber square off in the main event. RAF07 continues on March 28th at the Yuengling Center in Tampa, Florida with matches featuring Kyle Dake vs. Parker Keckeisen, Bo Bassett vs. Vladimer Khinchegashvili, and more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Additional matchups for RAF08 will be announced in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Real American Freestyle (RAF) announced today that RAF08 will be held on Saturday, April 18, 2026 at the Liacouras Center in Philadelphia and streamed live on FOX Nation. Headlining RAF08 is former UFC bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili. He will be making his RAF debut against the opposition. The 35-year-old \u201cMachine\u201d holds the record for the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[47442,47581,47443],"tags":[47437,47580,47438],"class_list":["post-18016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-ufc-mma-news","category-ncaa-wrestling-news-and-results","category-ufc-news","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-ncaa-wrestling-news-and-results","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/en_us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/en_us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/en_us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/en_us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/en_us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/en_us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/en_us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/en_us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/en_us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}