\u201cKing\u201d David Carr already has one UFC champion on his resume and he\u2019s hoping another will answer his call.<\/p>\n
A two-time NCAA champion with dreams of wrestling in the 2028 Olympics, the 26-year-old standout from Iowa State put on a dominant performance when he blanked Belal Muhammad in a match back at RAF 4 this past December. Carr racked up 10 points in rapid-fire fashion to earn the tech fall victory but he praised Muhammed for taking a shot \u2014 even if he was fighting an uphill battle wearing ice skates.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of respect goes out to Belal and any of the UFC guys like Arman Tsarukyan, all these guys that are coming in,\u201d Carr told MMA Fighting. \u201cWhen you get to see these UFC guys go into wrestling, it\u2019s just exciting. For wrestling, for UFC fans and it just grows the sport where you get to see some of your favorite fighters stay active.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the UFC, you might only get two fights a year or maybe three and it\u2019s really gruesome on your body. But in wrestling, you can compete, you might get a bloody nose, you might get a scratch here or there but you can be active and not hurt yourself. I think it\u2019s really appealing to all the UFC guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Carr defends his welterweight championship against ex-Bellator and PFL fighter Bubba Jenkins, who was an NCAA champion during his wrestling career as well.<\/p>\n
While he\u2019s certainly not looking past that match, Carr admits he has a couple of dream opponents he\u2019d love to face on the RAF mats including the current No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the UFC as well as a former rival and Olympic gold medalist.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s a great question,\u201d Carr said. \u201cDream match, No. 1 match would be Islam [Makhachev]. No. 2 in my dream matchup would be [Zaurbek] Sidakov. I think those two are the ones that excite me the most. If I was to get real excited for it and I think it would be fun for the fans. Those are definitely my dream matches and I hope RAF continues to climb and build and I hope we can see matches like those.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sidakov defeated Carr at the 2025 World Championships of wrestling so there\u2019s obviously a revenge factor in mind for that one.<\/p>\n
As far as Islam Makhachev goes, Carr just views him as the biggest possible challenge coming out of the UFC, even if he\u2019s not a wildly credentialed wrestler.<\/p>\n
To his credit, Makhachev\u2019s based is wrestling and he\u2019s spent plenty of time working with past champions including two-time Olympic gold medalist and recent RAF signee Abdulrashid Sadulaev.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has good wrestling. I\u2019ve seen his wrestling,\u201d Carr said about Makhachev. \u201cHe has a good base. He has freestyle. I think a lot of those guys, if you\u2019re training in Dagestan or around there, you\u2019re wrestling some of the best guys in the world. If you\u2019re doing OK with those guys, you\u2019re elite. I think those guys are elite.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis guy in some of his interviews saying \u2018me and Jordan Burroughs, that\u2019s a good match.\u2019 I\u2019m like I don\u2019t know. I know Jordan Burroughs and his accomplishments and I\u2019ve trained with him and I don\u2019t know if it would be a good match but that confidence and him wrestling in Dagestan, I think it builds a good match. You don\u2019t know. When there\u2019s curiosity in there, it makes for a good match.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carr obviously invites any of the top fighters from the UFC to test him on the mats but what about him potentially crossing over into MMA?<\/p>\n
For now, his sole focus remains on wrestling, especially with the Olympics taking place in Los Angeles in 2028 but Carr admits he\u2019s intrigued by the possibility of booking a fight down the road.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been interesting,\u201d Carr said. \u201cI\u2019ve thought about it more recently than I have in the past. I might do an amateur fight after the World Championships and that\u2019s something I want to train. I\u2019ve done some crosstraining but maybe just do an amateur fight, see how I feel and see how I like it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cKing\u201d David Carr already has one UFC champion on his resume and he\u2019s hoping another will answer his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,168750,168751,82,640,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-505830","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-raf-wrestling","14":"tag-raf-wrestling-news","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-ufc","17":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}