Arman Tsarukyan continues to compete everywhere except the UFC. His next non-MMA matchup — his sixth since submitting Dan Hooker at UFC Qatar last November — has just been confirmed and will be a 10 minute submission-only grappling match against Dillon Danis.
Both Tsarukyan and Danis were at Real American Freestyle 7 in Tampa, Florida this weekend. Tsarukyan was taking on Georgio Poullas in a rematch of their RAF06 match that ended in a brawl. Arman won that one easily, taking the wrestling match by points 9-4 (video highlights here). Danis didn’t do as well: the BJJ ace took on two-time Pac-10 champ Colby Covington, who bodied him 14-4 (watch it here).
Danis will now have a chance to prove he’s still top of the food chain in submission grappling when he faces off with Tsarukyan, the semi-exiled No. 1 UFC contender at lightweight. Hype FC will return to South America on April 8th for their second Hype Brazil event, this one in Sao Paolo.
The last Hype Brazil event was a grappling-based card on March 11th featuring Tsarukyan vs. Muhammad Mokaev, Jean Silva vs. Bryce Mitchell, and Shara “Bullet” Magomedov vs. Edson Barbosa. It will be interesting to see what other odd MMA combos the promotion puts together for this event.
As for Arman Tsarukyan and why he’s staying so busy? UFC contracts allow fighters (whom are technically independent contractors) to compete in grappling and wrestling events so long as they don’t have an upcoming bout announced. Tsarukyan remains unbooked by the UFC which sucks. On the plus side, he turned lemons into lemonade by establishing himself as a popular social media personality and competing at every non-UFC event possible.
Tsarukyan is 8-0-1 in these bouts over the past 12 months. Danis is probably his toughest competition since Arman took on Benson Henderson at ACBJJ 18 in September 2025. While “El Jefe” has seemed content to play the clown in other combat sports for a paycheck, his bread and butter is grappling, where he was once a rising star before a catastrophic knee injury sidelined him for years. Does he still have the submission chops he once did? We’ll find out on April 8th in Sao Paulo.