Henry Cejudo has his next opponent, and it’s a name few people expected to see on a wrestling card. Cejudo will face Song Yadong in the main event of RAF 15 in Chicago on November 28. MMA Fighting broke the matchup on X Wednesday night, and Championship Rounds followed about an hour later with the date, crediting the official RAF Wrestling account.
Cejudo arrives as the promotion’s lightweight crossover titleholder. He won that belt at RAF 12 in August by pinning Merab Dvalishvili in 36 seconds. That is a strange sentence to type about Dvalishvili, a man whose whole identity in the cage has been relentless takedowns. The win brought Cejudo’s RAF record to 2-1. When the promotion released its first crossover rankings on Monday, it placed the former two-division UFC champion at No. 2, behind only cruiserweight crossover champ Colby Covington, who is 5-0 in RAF. The announcement posts didn’t say whether Cejudo’s belt will be on the line in Chicago.
Song’s name has been everywhere this week for reasons that have nothing to do with RAF. Petr Yan, who defends the UFC bantamweight title against Dvalishvili in the co-main event of UFC 333, told MMA Fighting that Song is “more deserving” of a title shot than Sean O’Malley. O’Malley beat Song by decision before knocking out Aiemann Zahabi in the second round on the UFC White House card in June. Yan didn’t stop at the compliment. He also took a shot at how the UFC has handled O’Malley: “They raised this chicken to lay eggs for so long, and now they’re trying to squeeze as many eggs out as possible.”
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There was also a lighter moment. In a clip that circulated the same night as the booking, Jean Silva asked Song how much he weighs and seemed genuinely surprised by the answer. Song said 77 kilos, then corrected himself: “Yes, 78 kgs maybe.” That’s roughly 170 pounds, walking around, for a man who fights at bantamweight.
Cejudo, for his part, has been in a combative mood about grappling credentials. On the Pound 4 Pound show he took a swipe at a neighboring discipline: “People who can’t make it in wrestling do sambo.” Nobody will mistake him for a diplomat.
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Before Chicago, RAF has business in Las Vegas. RAF 14 goes this Friday, with Arman Tsarukyan meeting Dillon Danis for the inaugural middleweight crossover title. Khamzat Chimaev faces former UFC welterweight champ Robbie Lawler in the co-main event.
Quick take: This is the RAF crossover formula pushed about as far as it goes. You’ve got a lightweight crossover champion who just pinned the most famous wrestler in the bantamweight division faster than most fighters finish their walkout. Across from him is a man whose biggest headlines this month came from Petr Yan’s title-shot rankings. On paper, Cejudo should be a heavy favorite. The detail I keep coming back to is Song telling Silva he’s sitting near 78 kilos. If he brings that frame to Chicago and Cejudo can’t get him down early, November 28 gets a lot more interesting than the booking suggests.
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