Kyle Dake Retains RAF Cruiserweight Title With 7-6 Win in Moscow
Kyle Dake kept the RAF cruiserweight championship on Saturday, beating Mahamedkhabib Kadimagomedov 7-6 at RAF Moscow. Real American Freestyle posted the result with a simple caption: “KYLE DAKE. RAF CRUISERWEIGHT CHAMPION.”
The 190-pound title match was held at Mytishchi Arena in Moscow Oblast, Russia. It was their second meeting in the promotion and another one-score fight between two Olympic medalists.
Kadimagomedov, known as Kadik, is the 2021 Olympic silver medalist at 74 kilograms. He represented Belarus in Tokyo and is the only man to beat Dake by technical fall at the Games.
That quarterfinal ended 11-0 and knocked Dake out of gold-medal contention. Dake came back through repechage for bronze, then won world titles at 74 kilograms in 2021 and 2022.
They first wrestled in RAF on Jan. 10 at RAF 05 in Florida. Dake won that rematch 10-7 and kept the cruiserweight belt.
Saturday was tighter. MMA Fighting, MMA Mania, and FloWrestling all listed the Moscow score as 7-6 for Dake, matching RAF’s championship graphic.
Dake, 35, is from Lansing, New York, and wrestled at Cornell. He is the only wrestler to win four NCAA Division I titles in four different weight classes, and he did it without a redshirt year.
He has four senior world titles, at 79 kilograms in 2018 and 2019 and at 74 kilograms in 2021 and 2022. He also owns Olympic bronze medals from Tokyo in 2021 and Paris in 2024.
The RAF belt has been his since the promotion’s first card. He won the inaugural cruiserweight title on Aug. 30, 2025, by technical fall over Dean Hamiti, 11-0.
He then beat Boris Makoev 7-1, Kadik 10-7, Parker Keckeisen 7-1, and Vladimeri Gamkrelidze 2-0 at RAF Georgia on July 11. The Moscow decision makes him 6-0 in RAF.
Kadik remains one of the few men who has taken Dake to the edge. The Olympic technical fall still sits on Dake’s record, and two RAF meetings have now been decided by three points and one point.
A 7-6 title defense does not change Dake’s place in the international 74-kilogram picture by itself. It does keep the American champion’s RAF run intact on a Russian card against the wrestler who once blanked him on the biggest stage.
No next RAF opponent has been announced. Dake will wait for the promotion to book his next defense, while the rest of the RAF Moscow card continued Saturday with Khamzat Chimaev vs. Tyron Woodley still scheduled as the main event.