Precautions are in place to try and prevent another brawl at RAF 7 with Arman Tsarukyan rematching Georgio Poullas in the main event while fireworks could also potentially erupt when former UFC interim welterweight champion Colby Covington takes on Dillon Danis in the co-main event.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s according to RAF official Ben Askren, who wasn\u2019t thrilled by what unraveled in the first match between Tsarukyan and Poullas as they both committed a number of fouls before the top-ranked UFC lightweight tackled his opponent to the ground after the final buzzer and threw a punch, which led to a melee breaking out on stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cArman\u2019s a lot of fun, though,\u201d Askren told MMA Fighting about Tsarukyan. \u201cI didn\u2019t realize how funny he was until he started working with RAF. He\u2019s hilarious. He does a great job. The match was out of control in Tempe. I hope Tampa, I hope it doesn\u2019t turn into a fight again, although I think there\u2019s a chance of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bad blood between Tsarukyan and Poullas was already simmering before they stepped on the mats together as there was already plenty of trash talk exchanged prior to the match. Once the wrestling started, Tsarukyan and Poullas were both accused of committing numerous fouls including head slapping, eye pokes and finger manipulation, which drew warnings from the referee but neither competitor was disqualified.<\/p>\n
While some wrestling matches can get a little too physical, Askren says what happened between Tsarukyan and Poullas was way out of bounds. The retired UFC welterweight believes a lot of the problems started with Poullas, who seemed content poking the bear and trying to get a reaction out of Tsarukyan, which is exactly what happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was not a fan of the match,\u201d Askren said. \u201cSimply because it appeared Georgio was not trying to engage in the wrestling match. He was doing all these other tactics. I actually said during the first period break, I believe his strategy here because Arman has a short fuse, there\u2019s no doubt about that, to get Arman so upset that he punches him then he\u2019ll be a winner by disqualification. It appeared to be that\u2019s what was happening.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen funny enough, I was totally right because Arman said \u2018I knew I was going to punch him but if I punched him during the match, I\u2019d get disqualified so I waited until just after the match to punch him.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Askren says for the rematch, the referee overseeing the bout has been instructed to keep an eye on any illegal activity while Tsarukyan and Poullas will receive copious warnings that repeated fouls could lead to a disqualification.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unknown if that will actually stop another brawl from breaking out but Askren definitely hopes things go smoother this time around.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know RAF, we\u2019ve talked about this, there\u2019s going to be extra security,\u201d Askren revealed. \u201cWe cannot let what happened last time, the chaotic fight, we can\u2019t let that happen. We\u2019ve got to keep it under control. I know the referees are going to be coached up and the athletes \u2018here\u2019s what\u2019s legal, here\u2019s what\u2019s illegal.\u2019 We\u2019re going to call it the way it should be called. Hand jamming to the face is not allowed in international wrestling. You can\u2019t do that. So that is a caution and a penalty. You get three cautions, the match is over and you\u2019re disqualified. It\u2019s pretty simple.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to have a wrestling match that is refereed by the rules. It\u2019s not going to be loose anymore. We are going to call it. We\u2019re going to have extra security. This will not get out of hand. There will not be another brawl. Does one of them get disqualified? I can\u2019t tell you on that one. If they do want to abide by the rules of freestyle wrestling, that might happen. I\u2019m not sure. But it will be tighter than the last time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The same rules are going to be applied for Covington\u2019s match against Danis, especially given the skill set difference in that showdown.<\/p>\n
While Danis is world class grappler, he never competed at the highest levels in wrestling and Covington was an All-American at Oregon State. In his first appearance in RAF, Covington effectively ragdolled former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold, who was physically much bigger but completely outmatched when it came to wrestling.<\/p>\n
Askren expects much the same when Covington gets on the mat against Danis, but he can\u2019t help but wonder if the infamous troublemaker might try something out of bounds like pulling for a submission during a wrestling match and that could result in mayhem.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 1,000-percent see Danis doing that,\u201d Askren said. \u201cAgain, I will say the referees will be instructed to hold this one a little tighter. Because we know Colby generally wrestles by the rules, and he is the one who is the veteran, he should be the favorite and he should wrestle by the rules. Can you see Dillon Danis getting out of pocket? A 1,000 percent.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo here are the rules of the match. If you do things that are illegal like a guillotine chokehold, there will be a caution of one [point], there will be a penalty. If you get three penalties, you are disqualified. So I think we just need a referee who is really going to make them abide by the rules of the thing and we need make extra, extra clear here\u2019s the rules, here\u2019s how it\u2019s going to go down and if you don\u2019t want to do a real wrestling match, then this is a real wrestling match and you\u2019ll be disqualified.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course as soon as Danis was announced for the event, there were more than a few jabs about whether or not he would actually show up for the match against Covington.<\/p>\n
Danis twice cancelled matches against KSI when he crossed over to influencer boxing and more recently he dropped out of a scheduled MMA fight against Anthony Taylor after suffering injuries during a brawl that broke out at UFC 322 involving members of Islam Makhachev\u2019s team.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs Dillon Danis ever going to show up?\u201d Askren said. \u201cHe claims to be an MMA fighter, but I want to say he\u2019s got two total MMA bouts. I suppose he has three bouts over the course of eight years so I guess he\u2019s an MMA fighter. I suppose.<\/p>\n
\u201cWill he show up? I\u2019m hoping he will but he\u2019s at a significant disadvantage because Colby was a pretty solid college wrestler and Dillon never wrestled at that level.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Precautions are in place to try and prevent another brawl at RAF 7 with Arman Tsarukyan rematching Georgio…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,214253,214254,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-559133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-raf-wrestling","tag-raf-wrestling-news","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}