Colby Covington retired from the UFC to pursue a more active career in wrestling and now he’s set up for a huge match as he faces Arman Tsarukyan in the main event at RAF 11, which is set to take place on July 18 from Milwaukee’s UWM Panther Arena.
RAF officials made the matchup official after Covington and Tsarukyan both won and called each other out at RAF 9 on Saturday in Dallas.
While UFC officials have never stated anything on the record, it’s been rumored that the promotion wasn’t on board with
active fighters facing each other in RAF. But that potential hurdle was cleared with Covington announcing his retirement recently, which now sets him up for the showdown against Tsarukyan in July.
Earlier in the night, Tsarukyan moved to 5-0 in RAF with a tech fall victory over Mugzy and he’s already set up for another match at RAF 10 when he faces former UFC interim lightweight champion Tony Ferguson.
Thus far, Tsarukyan hasn’t faced any wrestler with accolades anywhere close to Covington, who was a fifth place finisher in college when he was an NCAA All-American at Oregon State.
As for Covington, he picked up a win over former UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman on Saturday with a final score of 5-4 in a closely contest matchup between the two All-American wrestlers. The win put Covington at 3-0 in RAF and he’ll try to keep that momentum going when he faces Tsarukyan in July.
Tsarukyan vs. Covington headlines the card with more matches expected to be added to RAF 11 in the coming weeks.
