Arman Tsarukyan the influencer draws far more attention than Arman Tsarukyan the fighter

If I had to give a percentage, I’d say that Arman Tsarukyan is 77% influencer at this point, and 23% fighter. If he were a bigger gambler, it would be fitting to see him sitting next to Dana White at a Vegas baccarat table, maybe alongside other luminaries such as Adin Ross and SteveWillDoit, throwing around six-figure bets to make Instagram reels. 

As it stands, he prefers to punch people. Or to tackle them off a raised platform. Or to head-butt them. It just depends on the mood (and the battery life of his camera guy). So long as it’s out of competition — or in the very least, out of bounds — “everything is content.” 

Knowing that, we didn’t actually think that his wrestling match with Dillon Danis, combat sport’s tawdriest of provocateurs, would go without incident, did we? At Thursday’s RAF 14 press conference, all it took was for Danis to stand up and show off his t-shirt for Tsarukyan to come flying off the rails.  

“It says Khamzat’s my b****,” Danis boasted. “And it has a picture with him without a beard.” Danis, it should be noted, lasted just 44 seconds against Chimaev at RAF 10 in June, which perhaps makes the shirt ironical. 

Next thing he knew, though, Tsarukyan — who is Khamzat’s friend and training partner — was on his side of the dais, throwing punches through a small republic of RAF security men, hoping that one might slip through and clip his chin. A miniature-scale pandemonium occurred, perhaps a solid five on a scale of zero-to-Khabib Nurmagomedov-talon-swooping-Danis-off-the-Octagon at UFC 229.

Impulses, especially when unchecked, make for perfect content, and that content went immediately viral. The clip went out everywhere, which is the perfect build for tonight’s RAF 14 main event in Las Vegas. It’s doubtful Danis will have an answer for Tsarukyan on the mats (he never really does), but there is a good chance that further incidents will ensue. In fact, it feels like a near guarantee. 

This is the Tsarukyan experience; it has less to do with competition, and more to do with what happens around it. 

This is why Dana White has a special doghouse for Tsarukyan, because of his brattishness, his sense of privilege, and his general insubordinate attitude. For those same reasons, RAF loves him. In fact, you wonder if RAF stands for Real Arman Fanatics, the way they give him free rein. 

RAF, the wrestling league in which Tsarukyan has competed eight times already, loves when Arman gets to acting up. The moment people started paying real attention to RAF was the moment Tsarukyan shoved and punched Georgio Poullas at RAF 6 after the bell, a sequence that can only be considered “extracurricular.” Yet it went viral, too. The MMA websites did some heavy traffic that weekend, and the rematch was made like 15 minutes later. 

(It was mostly uneventful.)

Yet as UFC 333 gets set to take place in Abu Dhabi on Saturday, it’s Arman who steals the Friday spotlight. Because he is the No. 1 contender at lightweight, there’s a scaffolding in place to care about his doings. And there’s a double-down element to Tsarukyan punching away at Danis because of an offending t-shirt. He was on his best behavior against Mauricio Ruffy in punching his ticket as the next challenger for Justin Gaethje at UFC 331 last month, a changed man, but this latest thing is what they call “recidivism” in Clark County courtrooms.

Arman hasn’t changed!

He is who he is and will be so long as social media exists. This is the shtick that works for him, and you can only hope that Dana — who runs a reprehensible sport called PowerSlap for his share in the click game — sees the ambitions in play. Being in business with a loose cannon isn’t all that bad when the idea is to direct attention at what you’re doing. 

It wasn’t that long ago that Arman punched some dude on his way to punch Charles Oliveira at UFC 300. He just coolly unloaded on some smart-mouth fan on his walkout, the way other fighters might high-five someone. Nothing much came of it in terms of punishment, yet it was the first sign of Tsarukyan’s brand of unruliness.

It feels like it’s been a million things since. Take your pick … him being kicked off an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Philadelphia for refusing to follow safety regulations … him tackling Urijah Faber off the RAF raised platform once he was there two days later … him head-butting Dan Hooker during a faceoff in Qatar, which ultimately cost him the title shot he was promised … the brawl at RAF 6 after Poullas … all that stuff with Nina Drama … and now this. 

Clubbing Dillon Danis in Vegas. 

Dillon Danis, who incites brawls just by walking into a room in cartoon sneakers. Danis, who is banned from UFC events. He is the cheap thrill of the fight game. If Danis were a liquor, he’d be hooch. He’d be Mad Dog 20/20. He’d come in a paper bag. Dillon Danis, who knows he can expect meatheaded responses because he is the valedictorian of meatheads, and yet he played Tsarukyan like a puppet. 

Or Tsarukyan played him. Nobody’s really counting, unless we’re speaking specifically in clicks.