Colby Covington (17-5) beat Arman Tsarukyan (23-3) 5-3 in the RAF 11 main event in Milwaukee to win the inaugural RAF Crossover Cruiserweight Championship, but came away predicting Tsarukyan will soon be UFC lightweight champion.
“I literally told him, ‘You are going to be the UFC lightweight champion.’ I am so convinced, no one is going to be him at lightweight. That is a perfect division,” Covington
“Justin Gaethje has no chance. Just the pace, the wrestling. The way he mixes it up with everything, no one is going to stop him right now,” Covington
Tsarukyan remains near the top of the lightweight rankings but has had a complicated path to a title shot. Dana White said Tsarukyan’s headbutt of Dan Hooker during a faceoff, along with a UFC 300 incident involving a fan, factored into the UFC bypassing him for title fights. Tsarukyan had also been set to challenge then-champion Islam Makhachev before withdrawing with a back injury.