Olympic champion Kyle Snyder is gearing up for his third straight appearance at RAF where he’s continuously faced the stiffest competition available to him while also preparing for a showdown at Final X where he looks to punch his ticket to the wrestling World Championships.
But joining RAF has afforded Snyder the chance to stay busy outside of international tournaments and he’s praised the promotion for putting a bigger spotlight on wrestling through big events and making unique matchups often times featuring stars from organizations like the UFC. While Snyder has stated in the past that he’s only really interested in facing the best wrestlers in the world, he’s changed his stance slightly with some of the names being thrown at him as potential opponents in matchups that could only happen in RAF.
That now includes former UFC heavyweight champion and NCAA heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar, who is now 48 years old but still an athletic freak by any measure available.
“I didn’t even think about this either but somebody brought it up—Brock Lesnar,” Snyder told MMA Fighting. “I mean Brock’s pretty old so I don’t know about that either. There’s a couple of good wrestlers in the UFC that I’d wrestle if they wanted to.”
Lesnar, who briefly retired from his current gig at WWE only to make his return a few weeks later, hasn’t wrestled competitively in years but he has worked with Olympic gold medalist Gable Steveson in the past since they both attended the University of Minnesota.
Lesnar also famously challenged Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle to an impromptu match when they were both active in WWE several years ago.
Whether or not Lesnar is interested in wrestling again—especially against somebody as accomplished as Snyder— is unknown but the former Ohio State standout is definitely open to the idea.
“That would just be a match strictly for the fans, something interesting for them,” Snyder said. “Obviously, Brock’s a big, big star so I’d be interested in that just for the way that it would promote the sport.
“But I think Brock doesn’t have to wrestle me for that to help wrestling and RAF. He could wrestle anybody and it would bring a lot of people to the sport. I hope he does.”
Another name thrown at Snyder recently was upstart UFC heavyweight Josh Hokit, who is set to face Derrick Lewis at the upcoming UFC White House card following a potential Fight of the Year against Curtis Blaydes in his last outing.
Before he became one of the loudest fighters on the entire UFC roster, Hokit played in the NFL and also wrestled at Fresno State where he became an All-American.
RAF has shown interest in working with Hokit and Snyder admitted that would also be a really fun match that could get a lot of attention.
“I like it. I think it’s funny,” Snyder said about Hokit’s outlandish behavior in UFC. “When I saw he was fighting [Curtis] Blaydes, his name sounded familiar so I looked him up and I’m like oh yeah, he wrestled at Fresno State. So I started watching some of his fights before and I was like I think he’s going to win. I thought he looked good. Just his hands, his movement and pace, I think he’s going to beat Blaydes and then he did.
“That would be another match where it would be for the fans if Josh was interested. We could definitely wrestle but he’s a big star and I think he’s going to become event bigger after the White House card, especially if he wins and knocks out Derrick Lewis. I think [RAF] had mentioned they were already talking to him.”
Now that he’s become a mainstay on the RAF roster, Snyder knows that there are plenty of interesting matchups available to him.
But as much as he welcomes the chance to face off against somebody like Lesnar or even Hokit, the 30-year-old two-time Olympic medalist says there’s one name that matters most to him in terms of possible opposition for the future and it’s arguably his biggest rival in the sport.
“I could wrestle Gable [Steveson], I could wrestle some of these UFC guys, I could wrestle Wyatt Hendrickson, bump up and wrestle him,” Snyder said.
“Chael [Sonnen] always asks me who I want to wrestle after the matches and the match I really want is Abdulrashid Sadulaev. So whenever RAF is ready to set that up because that’s the one I want the most.”
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