RAF 7

[BAC]

This is RAF's best card yet, with two monster matchups for freestyle diehards:

Snyder v Tazhudinov

Dake v. Keckeisen

The first one is juicy: the defending world champ in Snyder vs Taz, who manhandled Snyder both times they met and was anointed by many as "best wrestler in the world" after winning Worlds and Olympics in 2023/24 (displacing Sadulaev).  Of course Snyder took gold to Tax's bronze in 2025 (though they didn't meet), and Taz took a couple losses at the Islamic Solidarity Games in November, so I might favor Snyder this time around.

Dake v Keck might've looked like a WTT quarterfinal or semifinal a year ago, until Keck throttled Zahid (the latest "best wrestler in the world") at RAF 4 a couple months ago.  Has Zahid regressed, or has Keck improved that much? Not sure, but the other day Keck took gold at Zagreb, beating the Georgian who had teched Zahid.  As for 4x champ Dake, he's no spring chicken, but I can't think of any domestic losses he's taken in the last decade besides JB (many years ago) and Zahid last year.  This is a preview of 86kg WTTs.  I lean Dake but I'm not confident about it.

Article here:  https://intermatwrestle.com/articles.html/49_raf/bassett-vs-khinchegashvili-leads-star-studded-raf-07-card-r100800/

As an aside, it's sort of amusing how the title buries the lede, with "Bassett vs. Khinchegashvili Leads Star-Studded RAF 07 Card."  I get it that Bassett's social media following is probably higher than all the 4 above guys combined, so RAF probably has the correct title from a marketing perspective... but I really don't see Khinchegashvili providing a challenge.  He went from gold in 2016, to bronze in 2017, to 11th in 2018, to 22nd in 2019... and he hasn't made a world team since, nor has he competed at all (per UWW) since 2021. Should be a Bo tech.

Regardless, I really appreciate RAF making those first 2 matches happen.  

 

Edited February 5 by BAC

[HokieDave87]

RAF's mission is to hype up Bo and subsequently the VT superteam coming in 2027.

 

(in all seriousness the other matches are way better, Bo's got a tougher match tomorrow against Brandt Harer)

[Mr. PeanutButter]

Am I dumb? Why can't I easily find the matches for RAF 6? The mobile website doesn't seem to have a link to it

[Shibboleth]

I read somewhere that Tazhudinov weighed in something like 220 ppounds for his other raf match? Is that accurate? Snyder is heavier for sure

[bnwtwg]

5 hours ago, Shibboleth said:

I read somewhere that Tazhudinov weighed in something like 220 ppounds for his other raf match? Is that accurate? Snyder is heavier for sure

You are surprised that a euro competes close to walk-around weight? 

[Shibboleth]

3 hours ago, bnwtwg said:

You are surprised that a euro competes close to walk-around weight? 

No I was never surprised but thank you for your question. I just wanted to 2x check if that was accurate. In fact, Taz did weigh in at 223, so 10 lbs over his weight class. It's nothing in heavywright/light hwt