Tsarukyan's Side-Quest Economy

When Real American Freestyle announced that Tony Ferguson, 42, eight UFC losses deep, hadn't wrestled since junior college, would face the No. 1 UFC lightweight contender at RAF 10 on June 13 at Chaifetz Arena in Saint Louis, it marked another milestone in Arman Tsarukyan's increasingly surreal booking calendar. Ariel Helwani reported it. Yahoo, MMA Mania, and Lowkick all picked it up within hours.

Two weeks earlier, on May 30, Tsarukyan had already been booked at RAF 9 in Arlington against Keelon "Mugzy" Jimison. Two weeks after that, Ferguson. Two RAF cards. Same fighter. Both as the headliner. Different states.

For those keeping score:

• RAF 5 (Jan 10): Tsarukyan tech-falled four-time NCAA D1 All-American Lance Palmer 10-0. Chael Sonnen, calling the action, was visibly stunned.
• RAF 6 (Feb 28): Tsarukyan beat Georgio Poullas 5-3 in Tempe, then attacked him in the post-match line and started a brawl between both corners.
• RAF 7 (Mar 28): Tsarukyan beat Poullas again, 9-3. Highlight-reel suplex.
• RAF 8 (Apr 18): Tsarukyan tech-falled Urijah Faber 13-1 and drove him off the elevated mat into the front row on a single leg. Called out Colby Covington on the way off the stage.
• RAF 9 (May 30): Jimison.
• RAF 10 (Jun 13): Ferguson.

That was 4-0 in four months under the RAF banner with two more on the books. And RAF was just one of his side quests. His full inventory that year alone had included:

• Adin Ross's Miami warehouse on Kick: he'd ragdolled a 280-pound friend named Sweater God, then the YouTuber MMA Guru, then played ping-pong with Adin. $40,000 for an evening.
• A separate Kick stream with Clavicular where a volunteer agreed to feel a rear-naked choke. He went to sleep. Tsarukyan held it just a beat too long. The clip went everywhere.
• Hype Brazil grappling: rear-naked choked Muhammad Mokaev unconscious in the first round of a short-notice match.
• A still-pending UFC BJJ catchweight superfight against Mikey Musumeci, who walks around at 125 pounds. Tsarukyan walks around above 170. Dana White approved it in April with the enthusiasm of a man scrolling Zillow listings: "I guess. I don't know. Is that what he wants to do?"

What he hadn't booked, in any of this, was a UFC fight.

How a No. 1 contender ended up in the wrestling business

Tsarukyan had been the UFC's No. 1 lightweight contender for the better part of a year. He'd pulled out of UFC 311 against Islam Makhachev on 24 hours' notice in January 2025 with a back issue. He returned at UFC Qatar in November 2025 and submitted Dan Hooker in round two. Since then: nothing inside an Octagon. Outside one: the streaming income, the wrestling, the grappling, an Instagram callout to Tom Hardy, and a freak-show fight against the smallest current UFC BJJ champion.

The UFC removed him from the pound-for-pound top 15 in March after Dana White went public about being "not thrilled." Reports surfaced that the promotion had concluded he was "too dangerous," too unpredictable to match against a top opponent at short notice without a full camp. They gave the interim lightweight title shot to Justin Gaethje and Paddy Pimblett. Both ranked below Tsarukyan.

So Tsarukyan did the obvious thing. He became a freelancer.

The mechanics of an unkillable booking

The Ferguson booking wrote itself. RAF needed star power. Ferguson was famous and willing. He went 0-8 inside the UFC before being released in August 2024 after a first-round submission to Michael Chiesa, then took two boxing fights under Misfits and won both, capturing the MFB middleweight title in a UD over Warren Spencer. His wrestling resume after junior college was, generously, none of it. RAF found him a wrestling match anyway, and Tsarukyan, whose European Junior freestyle silver came in 2014, said yes inside the same week he agreed to wrestle Jimison.

The match was set for middleweight wrestling. Helwani's report didn't include an over/under on tech-fall time.

The over/under looked like 90 seconds.

There's a standard read here. Athlete builds a brand and takes the matches he can take while he can take them. Wrestlers don't get rich. UFC contenders who can't get booked have very few alternatives. RAF paid. Hype FC paid. Adin Ross paid. Misfits Boxing paid Tony Ferguson to keep showing up. Tsarukyan had said openly that one Kick stream paid him more in an hour than he'd net from a UFC main event after taxes (30%), gym (5%), coaches (5%), and management (15%) took their cuts. His reported pay under the new $7.7 billion Paramount deal had roughly doubled. His reported burn rate was $500,000 to $700,000 per month. Everyone in this story had an incentive to keep saying yes.

What the UFC was paying for by not paying

Fine. But there was a second pattern here, and it was the one the UFC should have been a little embarrassed about. Their No. 1 lightweight contender was so under-utilized that he was main-eventing two professional wrestling cards in two weeks against a 42-year-old former champ and a guy nobody had heard of the week before. The side-quest economy existed because the main quest had disappeared.

The framing had shifted permanently. The bookings used to be the news. Now the bookings were the joke. Faber pushed off the stage at RAF 8 was a story for one news cycle. Nobody flinched at the Jimison announcement. The Ferguson booking landed as the second item on most MMA aggregators by lunchtime. The next one landed lower. By the time RAF ran out of UFC alumni for him to wrestle, he'd be tag-teaming with Demetrious Johnson against the entire Renzo Gracie school.

What was strange was how unstrange it all had become. Fans showed up at Chaifetz on June 13 and watched a 42-year-old former interim UFC lightweight champion get tech-falled by the No. 1 lightweight contender, and the Fox Nation broadcast treated it as a real match. RAF had the venue. Tsarukyan had another payday. Ferguson had another walkout.

Tsarukyan had told Helwani he believed he was "more well-rounded than prime Khabib." He'd also said he'd fight for a UFC belt by summer. He'd floated dropping to featherweight. He'd mentioned wanting Charles Oliveira. He'd mentioned wanting Covington in RAF.

In the weeks that followed, he wrestled Jimison. Two weeks after that, Ferguson. Two weeks after that, somebody else's name leaked. He said yes.

What he wouldn't say yes to was a UFC fight, because there wasn't one being offered.

This post was generated by AI. Sources are linked below. Follow @bjj-problems on YouTube for the weekly video digest.

Sources

• Arman Tsarukyan takes on UFC legend at RAF 10 (Yahoo Sports)
• Another mismatch?!? Tsarukyan double books at RAF 10 (MMA Mania)
• Tsarukyan booked for 5th RAF match in 5 months — Jimison at RAF 9 (Yahoo Sports)
• RAF 8 results: Tsarukyan runs Faber off the mat, calls out Covington (Yahoo Sports)
• Tsarukyan starts brawl after RAF 6 win over Poullas (Bloody Elbow)
• Tsarukyan leaves Sonnen stunned at RAF 5 vs. Lance Palmer (Bloody Elbow)
• Tsarukyan chokes Mokaev unconscious at Hype FC (Bloody Elbow)
• UFC BJJ confirms Tsarukyan vs. Musumeci catchweight (Bloody Elbow)
• Tsarukyan removed from P4P rankings after Dana White's anger (Bloody Elbow)
• Tsarukyan says UFC pay doubled under $7.7B Paramount deal (Bloody Elbow)
• Tsarukyan made $40K on Adin Ross stream (Yahoo Sports)
• Tsarukyan offers to 'save' the featherweight division (Bloody Elbow)
• Tsarukyan athlete profile (Real American Freestyle)