Wyatt Hendrickson welcomes matches against Brock Lesnar, UFC fighters but warns them ‘someone is going to get hurt’
Wyatt Hendrickson hopes to become the next American heavyweight to capture gold at the Olympics with his sights set on the 2028 games in Los Angeles, but in the meantime, he’s sharpening up his skills while also competing in Real American Freestyle.
The upstart promotion originally founded by late WWE legend Hulk Hogan and longtime professional wrestling executive Eric Bischoff has found success by putting together cards that feature a mix of current wrestling stars and prominent past athletes from the sport while producing a show that feels like a UFC event. On Dec. 20, Hendrickson, who defeated 2020 Olympic gold medalist Gable Steveson to win his NCAA title, is featured in the main event on the card when he faces 2024 Olympian Mason Parris in a showdown that could serve as a preview for the U.S. Olympic trials in 2028.
“Mason and I are both guys with accolades where [people are saying] it’s going to come down to these two guys [for the Olympics],” Hendrickson told MMA Fighting. “This match, I was thinking about this even with my coaches, I was like is it best to wrestle him now? Because we know we’re going to wrestle again later. Part of it was like just go smash this guy.
“Who cares, it’s probably going to be the same thing for the next couple of times. Why not just go do it? It was supposed to be in Stillwater, and now people are saying it’s on Mason’s turf, it’s in Indiana and that’s honestly better for me. I love hostile environments. That almost fuels me more.”
Hendrickson’s first win in RAF came in dominant fashion over 2024 Olympian Mostafa Elders and now he’s got Parris directly in his sights for his next match.
But while Hendrickson has only faced other top wrestlers in RAF, the promotion has signed several prominent fighters with past wrestling experience to compete there as well.
On the same card where Hendrickson is headlining, Olympic silver medalist Yoel Romero makes his return to wrestling for a match against Pat Downey after he was originally scheduled to face UFC star and three-time NCAA champion Bo Nickal.
So far, Hendrickson hasn’t been presented with a similar opportunity with some UFC heavyweight interested in testing him on the mats but he also issued a warning to anybody who might eventually volunteer for duty. When he hears names like Brock Lesnar, who is a former NCAA champion wrestler and UFC heavyweight champion, get brought up, Hendrickson can’t help but smile about the possibility but he also understands that’s going to be a mismatch no matter how you cut it.
“I do like the fact that they’re bringing in more of those competitors,” Hendrickson said. “But one thing, and I say this kind of as a joke but kind of being serious, the heavyweights as much as I’m excited to compete against Mason, he’s a really good wrestler. Myself, I’m a very good wrestler. It’s kind of dangerous for some of those other guys to try to step in the ring with us. We’re at such a high level in our primes. Those guys are still really good but I feel like someone is going to get hurt if you try to throw someone in at heavyweight.
“Those smaller guys, the lighter weights, that’s probably a possibility. It’s not as crazy but Mason and I wrestled a match a couple of years ago at the Cliff Keen and us combined was like 520 pounds on the stage and we’re both young, able bodied Americans and we’re throwing each other all over the mat, the stage is about to break. That’s probably what’s going to happen again. So these aren’t little pitter-patter matches. If they brought someone in that would be super exciting but I’d almost be like I don’t want to hurt this guy. Make him sign a couple more waivers first.”
Current UFC fighters Joaquin Buckley and Clay Guida competed on the RAF 3 card in November and both were completely shut out in their respective matches. Former UFC welterweight champion Belal Muhammad is taking his stab at RAF 4 with Colby Covington and Luke Rockhold about to share the mats at an event in January.
Obviously, Hendrickson welcomes the chance to scrap with any past or present UFC heavyweight interested in giving him a challenge but he doesn’t expect it to end well for them.
“It’s really cool so I like what they’re doing with that,” Hendrickson said. “At the same time, I feel like some of those MMA guys, they need to learn some more wrestling.
“If it was an MMA fight, obviously they’re so good, but we need to put on a camp for these guys so they can learn how to sprawl. Wrestling, it’s a whole different animal. So is MMA. We need to get those guys into some wrestling practices.”
While he’s largely shut down the idea of doing MMA himself due to a history with concussions during his career, Hendrickson certainly has a ton of respect for anybody who fights.
He’s actually started training Brazilian jiu-jitsu recently and already found a passion for that sport that he expects to only grow as time passes.
“I feel like I’m going to do jiu-jitsu for the rest of my life now,” Hendrickson said. “People talk about it and now I finally get it. You try it out, this is awesome. This is a lot of fun. I was going against somebody who is like 160 pounds, and I could not get anything on him. He was on me like a monkey. It was something new. It was exciting seeing something new.”
As far as Lesnar or some other UFC heavyweight challenging him in RAF, Hendrickson loves the idea but he’s unsure anybody really wants that smoke.
“I’d be like dude, where do I sign?” Hendrickson said. “It’s a win-win for everyone. I might learn something different wrestling somebody else, but it’s also like this is really cool! It’s really exciting. There’s a UFC champion wrestling an NCAA champion!”
