Exactly one year ago on May 2, 2025, Arman Tsarukyan competed at a Karate Combat event against Makkasharip Zainukov. Since that date, he has competed 9 additional times across various rule sets including grappling, submission-only, and freestyle wrestling, not counting MMA, across four different promotions. Only 4 of his 10 non-MMA matches went to decision, with notable submission victories over opponents including Mehdi, Freire, and Henderson. The RAF league has grown alongside Tsarukyan and now wants him at every event, with two matches already scheduled just two weeks apart. His social media presence has also exploded, doubling his subscriber count, launching a Telegram channel that grew to over 100K subscribers, and producing vlogs that have accumulated over 5 million views total, with daily short videos reaching several million views each.
Twelve months after stepping onto the Karate Combat platform to face Makkasharip Zainukov on May 2, 2025, Arman Tsarukyan has quietly built one of the most active combat sports schedules outside of MMA in the sport today.
Tsarukyan, 29, enters this anniversary as the number-one ranked lightweight contender in the UFC, carrying a professional MMA record of 23-3 and fighting out of American Top Team. The Russian fighter stands five-foot-seven with a 72-inch reach and has built his UFC reputation on a relentless style — landing 3.85 significant strikes per minute at 50 percent accuracy while also threatening with 3.26 takedown attempts per 15 minutes.
Away from MMA, the past year tells a separate story entirely. Since that Karate Combat appearance, Tsarukyan has competed nine additional times across grappling, submission-only, and freestyle wrestling formats, spanning four different promotions. Of those ten non-MMA contests, only four reached a decision, with submission victories over opponents including Mehdi, Freire, and Henderson underlining his finishing instincts on the mat.
Why it matters
- The RAF league has grown so closely alongside Tsarukyan that two of his matches are now scheduled just two weeks apart, reflecting how central he has become to that organization.
- His cross-disciplinary activity keeps him sharp in grappling exchanges, an area where his UFC record already shows consistent takedown pressure.
- Off the mat, his audience has grown sharply over the same period — subscriber counts have doubled, a Telegram channel has passed 100,000 followers, and vlogs have accumulated more than five million total views, with individual short videos regularly reaching several million views each.
The combination of competitive volume across multiple rule sets and a rapidly expanding media footprint positions Tsarukyan as one of the more versatile and publicly prominent fighters in the lightweight division heading into his next chapter.
