Kyle Snyder beat Shamil Erdogan 11-0 by tech fall at RAF Abu Dhabi on Saturday, then used his moment on the mat to ask for Wyatt Hendrickson next.
Damon Martin reported the callout on X a couple of minutes after the match, writing that Snyder had called out Hendrickson for his next match in Real American Freestyle. Ben Askren saw it too. He tagged both wrestlers and the promotion on X and added, “I’m so in for this,” with a pair of fire emojis for anyone who missed the tone.
Martin didn’t hedge on the result either. “He is the best wrestler on the planet right now,” he wrote after Snyder’s win, which he described as Snyder winning again. When a guy who covers this stuff for a living puts that in writing on fight day, it carries weight.
View post on X
The win
The Snyder vs. Erdogan match was contested at 215 pounds, according to MMA Mania’s card listing. Uncrowned and MMA Junkie both billed it as an RAF light heavyweight title match. Snyder never gave up a point. An 11-0 tech fall against a guy who made it onto a 13-match card this stacked is about as clean a night as you get.
It was a good afternoon for the established names on the wrestling side of the card. Jordan Burroughs shut out Azamat Nurykau 9-0. Kyle Dake tech-falled Alp Arslan Begenjov 10-0 in the cruiserweight title match. Abdulrashid Sadulaev got past Dauren Kurugliev 8-5 on a decision.
View post on X
The week around it
This card didn’t arrive quietly. A Wednesday hotel brawl, which MMA Junkie said Usman Nurmagomedov set off against Merab Dvalishvili, led to arrests and lineup changes. MMA Fighting reported Dvalishvili was detained for around 48 hours and still chose to compete. He pinned Marlon Moraes at 1:30.
Saba Lazishvili, the 21-year-old teammate who was in that lobby fight with Dvalishvili, stepped in for Umar Nurmagomedov and upset Urijah Faber 12-7 in what MMA Fighting called his professional wrestling debut. Up top, Chris Weidman took the main event against Khamzat Chimaev on short notice after Colby Covington withdrew with an injury, with the inaugural light heavyweight crossover title on the line. I’ll always tip my cap to a guy who says yes to that phone call.
What we don’t know
Plenty. No date, no weight and no venue have been attached to a Snyder vs. Hendrickson match in anything we’ve seen. Nothing in the posts out of Abu Dhabi includes a response from Hendrickson, and RAF hadn’t put anything official out in the material available to us.
View post on X
My take: book it and stop thinking about it. Snyder didn’t hint, didn’t post a cryptic emoji, didn’t make anyone guess what he meant. He came off an 11-0 shutout and said a name. Askren is already in. Now Hendrickson gets to decide whether he answers the question as straight as it was asked.
