Elite level wrestling, National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) champions, Olympic Athletes, all come together to compete in the Real American Freestyle (RAF). The RAF is a competitive freestyle wrestling league where athletes can showcase their skills. They compete for the championship belt in their weight class.
Hulk Hogan, the co-founder, saw the potential in an amateur wrestling promotion. With the help of Chad Bronstein, he put together the RAF. On August 30, the first RAF event took place. Nearly every wrestler competed for a championship belt with notable performances by Wyatt Hendrickson, Kyle Dake, Real Woods, and Sarah Hildebrandt–all of whom are Olympic medal winners.
The RAF is somewhere that a wrestler can prove their worth which is exactly what Keelon Jimison, otherwise known as “Mugzy Bulljunk” is doing. Mugzy is a content creator that promotes wrestling and building your own personal brand. On October 5 of last year, Mugzy faced Cayden Henschel in an exhibition match hosted by Beat The Streets to raise awareness for the non-profit organization. In the match, Henschel had a dominant win over Bulljunk.
“I could have actually, easily scored over one-hundred points during that six minute match,” Henschel said.
Bulljunk was offended by the statement and responded by saying he would rather get beaten in front of millions of people than Cayden take it easy. Bulljunk requested a rematch in which Henschel accepted. It will be held on October 25 at RAF 02 in the Bryce Jordan Center. Junior, Luke Hockenberry, a student here at BAHS, thinks Cayden Henschel will win the rematch.
Henschel vs. Bulljunk is not the only interesting matchup that is on the RAF 02 card. Roman Bravo-Young is facing the champion, Nathan Tomasello. Bravo-Young, being a former wrestler for Penn State, will have home-crowd advantage. Bravo-Young’s accolades include being a four time All-American, two time NCAA National champion, three time Big Ten champion, and a 2022 Hodge trophy finalist. This will be a challenge for Tomasello, although he is a NCAA national champion and three time Big Ten Champion, Bravo-Young still has one more NCAA champion title. Luke Hockenberry also predicted that he thinks Roman Bravo-Young will win the title match.
Another exciting matchup is David Carr vs. Amr Reda Hussen. David Carr is a former wrestler for Iowa State. While he was wrestling for Iowa State, he became a two time NCAA champion, four time Big 12 champion and a five time NCAA All-American. Amr on the other hand, never wrestled in the NCAA. He is a decorated Egyptian international wrestler. While David does have more accolades than Amr, he has not wrestled freestyle in his entire life. In high school and the NCAA he wrestled folkstyle while Amr has been doing freestyle wrestling since he was old enough.
The RAF is full of opportunities and promising talent and it is just getting started.