Jason Nolf came within one series of making the U.S. Olympic team, but LA 2028 is no longer driving him. The former Penn State star has found a path in RAF that he enjoys more, and right now, he has little interest in going back.

Nolf’s decision comes at a time when a potential run toward the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics could still have been realistic. At 30, the three-time NCAA champion has plenty of wrestling experience behind him. But after rediscovering his competitive spark through Real American Freestyle, the former Nittany Lion appears far more interested in building something new than chasing another Olympic opportunity.

“Not really. I’m not really thinking about that,” Nolf said when asked about LA28. “I’m just doing RAF. It’s more fun.”

And his recent run explains why.

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At RAF 12 in Cleveland, Nolf dominated Evan Wick 11-1 to win the middleweight title. He built an early 5-0 lead, controlled the match from there, and finished it before all three periods were needed.

The victory pushed Nolf’s RAF record to 5-1 and extended his winning streak to five matches. With another bout already booked for September 5 in Moscow against Ismail Khaniev, his immediate direction is clear. RAF is where his attention is right now.

But that run started with a loss.

RAF brought Nolf back into wrestling on August 30, 2025, almost a year after he had retired from the sport. Wick spoiled that return by beating him 10-8 for the middleweight title at RAF 01 in Cleveland.

Nolf stayed with the promotion and sharpened his wrestling again. He beat Andy Varela 10-0, shut out David Mistulov by the same score, defeated Joey Blaze 11-2, and then got past Christopher Minto to build a four-match winning streak.

That streak eventually brought him back to Wick, and this time the result was completely different. Nearly a year after losing their first meeting, Nolf flipped the matchup with an 11-1 win and finally claimed the RAF middleweight title.

The run made one thing clear. Nolf was no longer just a retired wrestler testing the waters. RAF had pulled him back into serious competition, and with every win, he started looking more like the wrestler who had once come within one series of making the U.S. Olympic team.

Long before Jason Nolf came within reach of an Olympic berth, he had already built one of the strongest résumés in American wrestling.

At Penn State, Nolf became a three-time NCAA Division I champion, four-time NCAA finalist and four-time All-American, finishing his college career with a 117-3 record and a program-record 60 pins. His dominance also helped Penn State win four straight NCAA team championships, and he closed his senior season in 2019 with a perfect 31-0 record after winning the NCAA title bout 10-2 for his third national championship. Nolf carried that success into senior freestyle wrestling.

In April 2023, he won the U.S. Open title at 74 kg by beating former Penn State teammate Vincenzo Joseph 10-5 in the final, earning himself a spot at Final X. That set up another major test against reigning world champion Kyle Dake, who already owned the U.S. spot at the weight.

Dake ultimately beat Nolf in their Final X series to keep his place on the World Team, establishing a rivalry that would become even more important a year later when the two met again with an Olympic berth on the line.

April 2024 was Nolf’s real shot at the Olympics. Competing at 74 kg at the U.S. Olympic Trials in State College, he beat Alex Marinelli 7-2, then Jarrett Jacques 9-2 before shutting out 2012 Olympic champion Jordan Burroughs 3-0 in the Challenge Tournament final.

But beating Burroughs was not enough to send him to Paris. It only earned Nolf a best-of-three final against Kyle Dake, and Dake ended the run by beating him 4-1 and 3-1 to claim the Olympic spot.

Paris was essentially Nolf’s last serious Olympic-style push. Just four months after losing the Olympic spot to Kyle Dake, he officially retired from wrestling on August 26, 2024, and turned his attention to Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

By then, the move was already underway. Nolf had made his professional grappling debut in June and competed at the Craig Jones Invitational in August. He also announced plans to move to Austin, Texas, where he would focus on his business, train and compete in BJJ, and start a wrestling club.

By 2025, that shift had gone even further, with Nolf training at Kingsway around elite jiu-jitsu names like John Danaher and Gordon Ryan and getting opportunities on the UFC’s grappling scene.

So after falling short of Paris, Nolf didn’t immediately start building toward LA 2028. He moved into a different combat-sports lane altogether.

For someone who came one series away from making the U.S. Olympic team, choosing RAF over another Olympic push might seem surprising. But Nolf is hardly alone.

Other decorated American wrestlers have also started seeing RAF as something the sport has long been missing.

Jordan Burroughs heaps praise on RAF

Burroughs knows exactly how difficult it is to keep chasing Olympic glory when the years begin catching up.

At 38, the Olympic champion recently returned to competition through RAF, facing UFC welterweight Sean Brady at RAF 12. Like Nolf, Burroughs has discovered that the promotion offers something the traditional wrestling circuit often struggles to provide: another reason to keep competing.

“I’m getting older, so I’m past my prime,” Burroughs said on Fox & Friends. Yet he has no intention of simply disappearing from the mat.

RAF was co-founded by the late Hulk Hogan and Chad Bronstein, with Hogan envisioning a professional platform capable of giving wrestling a much larger audience. Before his death in 2025, Hogan spoke about wanting the promotion to become “as big or bigger” than WWE or UFC.

Burroughs believes the concept addresses a problem wrestlers have faced for years.

“Most wrestlers start at a very young age, but post-collegiately you don’t really have a lot of options,” he explained. “We’re trying to create a way to sustain excellence over a long period of time. I think RAF has done a great job.”

That opportunity has clearly resonated with Burroughs, whose résumé already includes Olympic gold, six world titles and two NCAA championships. But while RAF has given both Burroughs and Nolf another place to compete, their Olympic futures are not exactly the same.

Burroughs has not completely shut the door on another Olympic run. Nolf, however, sounds far less interested in reopening that chapter.

For Nolf, the choice is particularly clear. He chased Paris and came painfully close, only for Kyle Dake to stop him one series short of the Olympic team. Now, with an RAF belt around his waist and another match already waiting, Nolf appears to have found a different path he actually enjoys more.