Arman Tsarukyan Threw the First Punch Over a T-Shirt. RAF 14 Goes Ahead Tonight Anyway.
Dillon Danis wore a shirt to a press conference. A reporter asked him what it said. Danis stood, stretched it out and read it aloud: a beardless picture of Khamzat Chimaev above the words “Khamzat is my b****.”
Arman Tsarukyan got out of his chair, walked across the stage past the two men who run the promotion, and threw a right hand.
What Happened at the Fontainebleau
This was Thursday night in Las Vegas, at the final press conference before Real American Freestyle 14. Tsarukyan and Danis had been trading insults with RAF co-founders Chad Bronstein and Izzy Martinez seated between them, an optimistic piece of staging.
Once Tsarukyan moved, so did everyone. MMA Fighting’s Damon Martin wrote that dozens of people rushed the stage and that it nearly collapsed. Yahoo Sports put the scene at close to two minutes. Both men were throwing punches rather than wrestling, which is worth noting at an event where striking is against the rules.
Ariel Helwani was in the room and was careful about what he could actually see. “Arman got up and swung, not sure if he hit him, and then chaos,” he posted. Whether the punch landed on Danis remains unclear.
A member of the security team was seen bleeding from the face. MMA Sucka described the injury as minor. MMA Mania reported that the punch appeared to miss Danis and catch a guard instead, wording that is hedged in the original. The guard has not been named and the extent of his injury has not been disclosed.
Here is what has not happened, which matters as much as what did. No arrests have been reported. No police report has been reported as filed. Neither RAF nor the Fontainebleau has issued a statement. No discipline has been announced against anybody. The fight is still on tonight.
Chimaev Had to Be Held Back
Chimaev, whose face was on the shirt, was at the press conference and needed roughly four people to keep him off the stage. Footage circulated by MMA Mania has him shouting threats across the room. No account has him landing a punch.
He pinned Danis in 44 seconds at RAF 10 in June, a match that also ended with the two camps brawling.
Chimaev faces Robbie Lawler in tonight’s co-main event. Lawler wanted no part of it. “I’m just keeping my life simple and I’m not trying to get involved in any of that nonsense,” he told MMA Fighting, noting that “a lot of kids are watching this” and that competitors “need to do a better job.”
Neither Man Is New at This
Tsarukyan is 29, ranked second at UFC lightweight behind Ilia Topuria with Justin Gaethje holding the belt, and 24-3 as a professional. He is also the fighter Nevada fined $25,000 and suspended nine months for swinging at a fan during his UFC 300 walkout, who headbutted Dan Hooker at a ceremonial weigh-in last November in an incident Hooker said broke his nose, and who struck Georgio Poullas after beating him at RAF 06 in February and started a brawl doing it.
Danis is 33, a Marcelo Garcia black belt, 3-0 in MMA and 0-2 in RAF. He was fined and suspended for his part in the UFC 229 brawl in 2018, disqualified against Logan Paul in 2023 for attempting a choke, and banned from UFC events by Dana White after a fight in the stands at UFC 322 last November.
Tsarukyan’s explanation afterward was short. “He stood up and said something bad to my friend,” he said in remarks shared by Uncrowned. “I don’t care what happens after.”
RAF Should Say Something Before the Doors Open
Real American Freestyle is a professional freestyle wrestling company, launched in April 2025 with Hulk Hogan among its co-founders, broadcasting on Fox Nation and running youth events for kids under the RAF Next Gen banner. Tonight is its Las Vegas debut.
It has now had three press-conference or post-match brawls in eight months involving the same handful of crossover names. A bleeding security guard is a different category of problem than two competitors shoving each other, and the people who could address it were sitting between them when it started.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
