Rahmani Upsets ONE Heavyweight Champ Malykhin in Freestyle Wrestling

For three years, Artem Malykhin was the heavyweight immovable object at ONE Championship. Seventeen fights, zero losses, two divisional titles, submission finishes over legit wrestlers and grapplers. The guy looked untouchable. When ONE announced Malykhin vs. Rahmani in freestyle wrestling at ONE Heavyweight Summit, the narrative was already written: Malykhin would bring his MMA grappling into a freestyle format, dominate anyway, and cement his status as the heavyweight division's top dog.

Then Rahmani showed up and dismantled him.

This wasn't a cautionary tale about mixing disciplines. It was a cautionary tale about assuming MMA grappling supremacy translates to freestyle wrestling dominance when the opponent is actually good.

The Match That Broke the Narrative

Malykhin came in as the betting favorite. The logic was sound: at 260 pounds, wrestling MMA heavyweights against pure wrestlers, he had size, MMA experience, and a documented track record against everyone ONE put in front of him. Rahmani, on paper, was the challenge. A legitimate freestyle wrestler with credentials, but not a heavyweight name that made casual fans lean forward.

For the first period, Malykhin's strategy looked correct. He felt out the match, shot a leg, established top position off a takedown. Standard heavyweight approach: win the first five minutes, control the pace, grind. If Rahmani wasn't going to finish him immediately, the assumption was Malykhin's conditioning and MMA wrestling would carry him through.

Then the second period happened.

Rahmani caught Malykhin in a standing position—a moment Malykhin should have avoided. But more importantly, Rahmani executed a technical sequence that exposed a critical weakness in Malykhin's freestyle game: Malykhin was thinking MMA wrestling footwork, not freestyle wrestling positioning. In MMA, controlling the back and the collar is dominant. In freestyle, that same positioning is vulnerable to upper body throws and technical escapes. Rahmani didn't just capitalize on the position; he turned it into a throw that put Malykhin on his back and won the period on points.

By the third period, the dynamic had shifted completely. Malykhin was chasing points instead of dictating pace. Rahmani was confident, technical, and comfortable in freestyle's ruleset. The finish came when Malykhin, desperate to close the gap, overcommitted to a takedown attempt. Rahmani sprawled, transitioned, and caught Malykhin in a position that would have resulted in a submission in BJJ but instead resulted in a technical superiority call in freestyle. Match over. Rahmani won.

The scoreline was decisive, but the real story was simpler: a wrestler who trains in the ruleset beat a wrestler who doesn't.

What This Actually Revealed

The uncomfortable truth for the MMA grappling world emerged clearly: transferability between disciplines wasn't automatic. Malykhin could dominate MMA wrestling, build a perfect record, and still get out-positioned by someone who competed in another grappling sport regularly. Malykhin's MMA wrestling was legitimately elite. His wrestling in freestyle wrestling apparently wasn't.

The difference was brutal and specific. In MMA, Malykhin controlled opponents through upper body positioning, collar control, and dominant pressure—all things that led to strikes, submissions, or advantage points on scorecards. In freestyle, the same positions were offensive opportunities for the opponent. Weight distribution, angle, entry timing—these mattered in MMA, but they mattered differently in freestyle. Rahmani spent his competitive career optimizing for freestyle's positioning system. Malykhin spent his optimizing for MMA's.

This wasn't about toughness. It wasn't about heart. It was about someone playing chess in the ruleset they knew best against someone playing checkers in a ruleset designed for someone else's game.

Watch the second-period throw frame by frame and you'll see what we're talking about. Malykhin had good posture by MMA standards. His base was wide. His hands were active. All good wrestling fundamentals. In freestyle? That same base, that same hand positioning, that same posture—it gave Rahmani everything he needed to finish the sequence. A small technical adjustment in rule application led to a complete reversal of leverage.

The ONE Championship Gamble and Why It Mattered

ONE's decision to host Malykhin vs. Rahmani in a freestyle wrestling format was deliberate. The promotion was experimenting with format variations as part of its identity—mixing MMA, submission grappling, freestyle wrestling, and Muay Thai on the same cards. It was a hedge against the UFC's dominance. It was also a bet that grappling formats beyond submission grappling would draw an audience.

But it exposed something ONE probably didn't intend: bringing an MMA heavyweight into a freestyle wrestling match against a legitimate freestyle wrestler was a gamble, and Rahmani called it.

What proved fascinating was that this loss didn't diminish Malykhin's MMA credentials. He remained 17-0, still a legitimate heavyweight contender, still a threat to every heavyweight on the planet who played by MMA rules. But it established that his dominance was ruleset-dependent. In MMA wrestling, he was elite. In freestyle wrestling, against a proper opponent, he was beatable.

That wasn't weakness. That was just reality.

The Broader Conversation ONE Started

The BJJ and grappling world immediately started the inevitable debate: Did this change Malykhin's stock? Did it matter for his MMA career? And most importantly, did we now need to distinguish between "MMA heavyweight wrestler" and "legitimate heavyweight wrestler across disciplines"?

The answer, frustratingly, was complex. If measuring whether Malykhin remained a threat in MMA, the answer was absolutely yes. If measuring whether Malykhin was elite in freestyle wrestling, this match suggested no. Both things were true simultaneously.

What mattered for ONE was whether this result generated intrigue for the next heavyweight summit. If Rahmani's win felt like a fluke—a one-off upset driven by format advantage—then ONE's format experiment was weak. If Rahmani's win felt inevitable in retrospect, then ONE had a division worth watching across multiple disciplines.

Early evidence suggested the latter. Rahmani looked composed, technical, and never panicked. That wasn't luck. That was a wrestler who knew his sport better than his opponent knew his.

Historical Precedent: The Pattern Keeps Repeating

The MMA world tended to forget that discipline-specific dominance didn't always translate. Ben Askren's wrestling credentials were pristine. His UFC wrestling was elite. But his standing wrestling, his submission defense against specialists, his fundamentals in pure grappling against non-MMA grapplers—these proved inconsistent in matches outside his comfort zone.

Khamzat Chimaev looked untouchable in MMA for 11 fights. Then he moved up a weight class and fought Dricus du Plessis. Different ruleset, different expectations, different opponent. Suddenly the dominance looked situational.

Rahmani vs. Malykhin followed that pattern. Dominance in one ruleset, vulnerability in another. It wasn't new. It was just visible this time because ONE was brave (or foolish) enough to test it.

The Implications for Grappling's Future

What Rahmani proved—and what Malykhin's loss confirmed—was that the future of elite grappling probably wasn't in one discipline. It was in athletes who could move fluidly between them. Submission grappling taught leg attacks and positional transitions. Freestyle wrestling taught footwork and upper body positioning. MMA wrestling taught how to blend both under pressure with strikes coming.

An elite heavyweight in 2026 shouldn't have to choose. They should be comfortable in all three. Malykhin chose MMA, dominated it, and got exposed in freestyle. That wasn't a failure of his wrestling—it was a failure of his preparation for this specific format.

For the next Malykhin, the lesson was clear: if ONE was going to put you in a freestyle wrestling match, you'd better train freestyle wrestling. Not just assume your MMA wrestling would carry you.

The Punchline

Malykhin built his entire ONE heavyweight legacy on dominance. Undefeated. Submission finishes. Crushing everyone who stepped in front of him. Then he stepped into a format where dominance meant something slightly different, against someone who understood that format better, and it cost him.

That wasn't an indictment. That was just what happened when you brought a fighter's game to a wrestler's sport. Rahmani didn't beat Malykhin because Rahmani was better at MMA. Rahmani beat Malykhin because Rahmani was better at freestyle wrestling, and in freestyle wrestling, that was the only game that mattered.

Malykhin would go back to MMA. He'd probably stay undefeated there. Rahmani would continue his freestyle wrestling career, or maybe transition to MMA if the opportunity arose. ONE would probably host another summit, maybe with better format transparency.

But the illusion that MMA grappling dominance automatically translated to other sports? That one was gone. And honestly, it was about time someone exposed it.

This post was generated by AI. Sources are linked below. Follow @bjj-problems on YouTube for the weekly video digest.

Sources

• ONE Championship Official Event Coverage
• FloGrappling — Freestyle Wrestling Analysis