Arman Tsarukyan and Colby Covington both picked up impressive wins at RAF 7 on Saturday and now they are trying to clash with each other as long as the UFC allows it to happen.<\/p>\n
Following a dubious RAF debut where Tsarukyan ended up punching opponent Georgio Poullas after the match finished, which ignited a huge brawl, the veteran lightweight was much more composed for the rematch. He scored a huge throw late in the match to deliver an emphatic win over Poullas to move to 3-0 in RAF.<\/p>\n
Covington accomplished much the same after Dillon Danis actually scored some points on him early but the former UFC interim welterweight champion turned up the heat in the second period before earning a technical fall after going up 14-4 to end the match. Now Covington is entertaining a showdown against Tsarukyan after claiming he already thumped the UFC lightweight when they were training together at American Top Team in Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s do it. I\u2019d love to dunk him, give him a wedgie and stuff him in a locker,\u201d Covington said at the post-match press conference. \u201cI love it. It\u2019s a great angle. I think it\u2019s a great storyline. We did used to train together at one point at American Top Team. So I think it\u2019s a great matchup. The only one that has to sign off on it is UFC. As long as UFC signs off, we can make that happen but right now they\u2019re blocking it.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019m going to have a talk with Hunter Campbell in Miami when the UFC comes to Miami in a couple weeks and we\u2019re going to get this situated. Because this is the fight the fans want. This is the match that RAF deserves and it\u2019s the biggest match that we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because both fighters are under contract, the UFC has to give them permission to compete in any outside promotion whether that\u2019s grappling, wrestling or anything else. Per sources, the UFC has allowed fighters to compete in RAF under no restrictions outside of avoiding matchups pitting two active athletes against each other.<\/p>\n
That might be the holdup in booking Covington against Tsarukyan but it appears both fighters are going to try to make it happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want Colby Covington because he has a couple victories and he\u2019s a superstar in UFC and he\u2019s a legit wrestler and I want to beat him,\u201d Tsarukyan said. \u201cI know my skills, I can beat him. He told everybody that he wrestled me in the gym and maybe he misunderstood it wasn\u2019t me so someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n
As far as those training sessions from the past, Tsarukyan stated that Covington must be mistaken about who he was wrestling because it wasn\u2019t him. He then pointed out that Covington actually gave up points to Danis, who is a grappling champion and high-level Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner but not an actual wrestler.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never trained with you,\u201d Tsarukyan fired back. \u201cI\u2019ve seen you in the gym but we never wrestled. There\u2019s thousands of Dagestani and Chechen guys who look similar. Nobody beat me in ATT and especially you in the wrestling. You have just good cardio, that\u2019s all.<\/p>\n
\u201cDillon Danis almost beat your ass! He gave you points. He has zero freestyle wrestling. How you gave him points? I can wrestle anybody, anywhere. Let\u2019s make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Covington then defended his matchup against Danis while somehow dragging former UFC champion Khabib Nurmagomedov into the conversation.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, it was definitely you, bro,\u201d Covington said. \u201cYou know it was you. We wrestled, I swear on my life. We wrestled. I got respect for you. I guess that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to find out soon in the RAF mat.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Dillon Danis] scared Khabib. He could beat Khabib. Conor [McGregor] knew that f*cking Dillon Danis could beat Khabib.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regardless of what unfolded on Saturday at RAF 7, Covington and Tsarukyan both seem interested in meeting on the mats but it\u2019s up to the UFC to decide whether or not it happens.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll we need is the UFC\u2019s approval,\u201d Covington said. \u201cCome on Hunter Campbell, this is the greatest promotion God\u2019s green earth right now is RAF so let\u2019s make it happen. Hopefully Hunter Campbell and Dana White will sign off on it and this will be the highest level wrestling match you\u2019ve ever seen. Arman Tsarukyan vs. Colby Covington.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arman Tsarukyan and Colby Covington both picked up impressive wins at RAF 7 on Saturday and now they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574567,"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-574566","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\/574566","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=574566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}