Jordan Burroughs got his hand raised at RAF Abu Dhabi on Saturday and spent the afterglow picking a fight with one of the UFC’s best lightweights.
“Arman Tsarukyan is scared to wrestle me,” Burroughs said, according to a post from Damon Martin on X, who framed it as the Olympic wrestling champion taking aim at Tsarukyan after his win.
That’s the whole callout as far as the public record goes. One sentence, no hedging, aimed at a guy who has been treating RAF like a second home. I’ll take it over a cryptic emoji any day.
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Tsarukyan wasn’t hiding in the crowd, either. He was booked on the very same card, facing Neiman Gracie in the co-main event at Etihad Arena. Khamzat Chimaev and Chris Weidman headlined with a light heavyweight crossover championship bout. The lineup also had Merab Dvalishvili against Marlon Moraes, Urijah Faber against 21-year-old Saba Lazishvili, and Abdulrashid Sadulaev against Dauren Kurugliev, which is a lot of wrestling talent under one roof.
A messy week for Tsarukyan
The Burroughs line lands at the end of a loud week for the Armenian lightweight. Earlier in fight week, Usman Nurmagomedov and several members of his team jumped Dvalishvili during an interview, a melee that left the former UFC bantamweight champion and a teammate bloodied. MMA Fighting reported that Nurmagomedov and seven others were reportedly sentenced to six months in jail, and that Dvalishvili was detained for around 48 hours before deciding to compete anyway. Lazishvili, the kid who was shown swinging alongside him while badly outnumbered, got added to the card in place of Umar Nurmagomedov.
Tsarukyan didn’t run from that topic. In a clip shared by RAF Wrestling USA, he said, “This always happens, it’s part of our sport. Sometimes camera [catches it], sometimes no. This time someone filmed it.” In comments relayed by Adam Zubayraev, he went further and sided with Nurmagomedov: “It was bound to happen. I was just surprised nothing happened the last time Merab was here. There was bound to be retaliation, and it happened.”
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He has his own RAF rap sheet. MMA Fighting noted Tsarukyan has been in a couple of brawls this year, with Georgio Poullas and Dillon Danis.
Dana White, whose company lets Tsarukyan and Chimaev compete for RAF, was not amused by the latest chaos. “And, the RAF, there’s literally a fist fight at every one of these things,” White told EuroSport. He added that the RAF folks should have figured out by now how to stop it.
What’s next
Nothing is booked. No offer has been made public, and Tsarukyan hadn’t answered Burroughs as of Martin’s post on Saturday afternoon.
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My take: this is the rare callout that deserves an answer, and RAF should be on the phone tonight. Tsarukyan has built a side gig on these mats, and he talks straight about everything from brawls to retaliation. An Olympic champion just told him to his face that he’s ducking. If Tsarukyan wants to keep showing up in Abu Dhabi with a wrestling singlet on, Burroughs is the name he has to say yes or no to.
