Dillon Danis made weight Friday for his main event wrestling match against UFC lightweight contender Arman Tsarukyan at RAF 14. He did not look great doing it. MMA Fighting posted video of Danis on the scale, shot by Mike Heck Jr., and Guilherme Cruz quoted it with a blunt two-word review: “looking rough.”
That read fits the week Danis has had. Tsarukyan stepped up first, and MMA Fighting described him as “ON POINT” for what the outlet billed as a grudge match. Next to that, Danis looked like a guy who had spent the last few days burning more than calories.
The rest of the scale
The co-main is also locked in. Khamzat Chimaev made weight for his wrestling matchup with Robbie Lawler, and MMA Fighting framed it as a meeting of two former UFC champions. Lawler’s trip to the scale got its own clip, which MMA Fighting called his return to the scale. For a fighter whose name still sends fans hunting for old highlight reels, that alone makes the card worth a look.
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Both main event principals also sat down with Josh Thomson for Weighing In interviews at the RAF venue. Thomson posted his Tsarukyan conversation first on Friday morning and followed it with Chimaev.
Thursday’s chaos
The reason anyone cares how Danis looked on a scale for a wrestling match goes back to Thursday’s press conference, which came apart in a hurry. Championship Rounds posted RAF’s own footage of a brawl between Danis and Tsarukyan. Red Corner MMA reported that the melee pulled in Chimaev and multiple members of each team. Championship Rounds also shared a photo of what it called the shirt that started the whole thing.
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Ariel Helwani wrote on X that one security guard was bleeding and called it an ugly scene. His exact words: “Total chaos.”
Chimaev did not hide where he stood. In video Championship Rounds shared from Red Corner MMA, he went straight at Danis: “Hey you don’t know who is your daddy btch! I’ll fck you up.” So Danis now walks into a room with Tsarukyan across from him and Chimaev wrestling right before him, two men who were throwing hands at him less than 24 hours before weigh-ins. That’s a long night for anybody, and it’s longer if you showed up to the scale looking drained.
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Quick take
I don’t put much stock in weigh-in faces, because guys look awful on the scale and then come out flying the next night all the time. But Danis spent the build talking like he wanted this smoke, and Tsarukyan spent it looking like a lightweight contender who wrestles for a living. If Danis is as depleted as Cruz thinks, the first hand fight is going to tell us very quickly, and Tsarukyan has never struck me as someone who lets a tired opponent off the hook. Chimaev and Lawler go right before them, so Danis gets to warm up listening to the guy who promised to “f*ck you up” go to work.
