{"id":512229,"date":"2026-03-01T17:48:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T17:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/512229\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T17:48:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T17:48:07","slug":"merab-dvalishvili-vs-henry-cejudo-headlines-raf08-in-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/512229\/","title":{"rendered":"Merab Dvalishvili vs. Henry Cejudo headlines RAF08 in Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Merab Dvalishvili<\/a> and Henry Cejudo will compete again \u2013 this time on the wrestling mat.<\/p>\n

After Dvalishvili defeated Cejudo by unanimous decision<\/a> at UFC 298 in February 2024, the pair will square off once again in the RAF08 headliner on April 18 at Liacouras Center in Philadelphia (FOX Nation).<\/p>\n

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The matchup was announced at Saturday’s RAF06 event, where Cejudo returned to wrestling for the first time since retiring from MMA competition<\/a> following his UFC 323 loss to Payton Talbott in December.<\/p>\n

Cejudo defeated UFC Hall of Famer Urijah Faber by 11-0 technical fall in their RAF06 main event, and instantly afterward Cejudo called out “The Machine,” who was in attendance and promptly stepped up and agreed to the match.<\/p>\n

RAF announced the signing<\/a> of Dvalishvili in February, but no opponent was revealed. It’s clear now what the promotion was waiting on, and now Cejudo has held up his end of the bargain.<\/p>\n

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Dvalishvili will use the match as a stay-busy activity while he waits for confirmation of his trilogy bout with UFC bantamweight champion Petr Yan<\/a>, who took the belt from him<\/a> at UFC 323 and ended his 135-pound reign after three defenses.<\/p>\n

No other matchups for RAF08 have been confirmed at this time.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Merab Dvalishvili vs. Henry Cejudo headlines RAF08 in Philadelphia<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Merab Dvalishvili and Henry Cejudo will compete again \u2013 this time on the wrestling mat. After Dvalishvili defeated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,206106,92485,25363,785,85,787,9222,54131],"class_list":["post-512229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-fox-nation","tag-henry-cejudo","tag-merab-dvalishvili","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-unanimous-decision","tag-urijah-faber"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}