Colby Covington handed Arman Tsarukyan his first Real American Freestyle loss on Saturday, winning the RAF 11 catchweight championship main event 5-2 at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Panther Arena in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Watch the highlights below.
FOUND A WAY 😤
Colby Covington takes on Arman Tsarukyan July 18 in Milwaukee at RAF11.
Tickets in bio. Stream exclusively on @foxnation pic.twitter.com/qjoGbpJLhs
— Real American Freestyle (@RAFWrestlingUSA) June 25, 2026
COLBY COVINGTON JUST BEAT ARMAN TSARUKYAN AT RAF 11 🤯
ARMAN’S FIRST LOSS IN RAF pic.twitter.com/sit0Usfktl
— Championship Rounds (@ChampRDS) July 19, 2026
Covington’s First Round Held Up
The official RAF card showed Covington do his best work immediately. He banked a 3-0 first round, turning the opening exchanges into the kind of pressure wrestling match that has carried him through the promotion since his debut. Tsarukyan answered with a 2-2 second, but that only kept the gap intact instead of flipping the match.
That left Tsarukyan needing a big closing round. He got one point back in the third and forced Covington to defend the lead rather than extend it, yet the damage from the opening frame stayed on the board. When the six minutes ended, RAF’s public result grid still had Covington ahead 5-2, with takedowns even at 1-1.
Covington kept the match on pace and position, scoring enough early to make Tsarukyan chase the board instead of building long attacks of his own. Tsarukyan still found points late, but the first real deficit of his RAF career was already there.
Covington Ends Tsarukyan’s RAF Streak In Milwaukee
Covington left Milwaukee at 4-0 in RAF and added the catchweight championship tag to earlier wins over Luke Rockhold, Chael Sonnen, and Chris Weidman. The 38-year-old from Clovis, California, representing MMA Masters, came in with the deeper traditional wrestling background and made that edge matter in the biggest RAF slot he has had.
Tsarukyan had entered the night 7-0 in RAF after running through Kuat Khamitov at RAF Georgia and staying unbeaten through his first seven RAF appearances. The 29-year-old Armenian, fighting out of American Top Team, still left the main event with only one RAF loss, but it was the first time the promotion’s scoring board showed him walking out second.
RAF 11 aired on FOX Nation on July 18, 2026. Covington left Milwaukee with the catchweight championship result, the main-event score, and the first win over Tsarukyan on an RAF mat.
