Mauricio Ruffy Has Now Weighed In on N3on Being in Tsarukyan's Corner, and the MMA World Is Not Staying Quiet

When N3on officially announced he would corner Arman Tsarukyan at UFC 331, the streamer world clocked it as a stunt. Then the MMA world started paying attention, and the temperature changed.

Now Mauricio Ruffy has publicly reacted to the news, per MMA Junkie, which means an actual active UFC fighter found this situation worthy of comment. We love when combat sports takes the bait. The outlet covered Ruffy's reaction as a straight news item, which tells you everything about how far N3on has planted himself inside a world that would have laughed him out of the room eighteen months ago.

Sherdog, for its part, framed the situation as a streamer who "claims" he will corner Tsarukyan alongside Khamzat Chimaev. Chimaev. That name in the same sentence as N3on is doing something to people, because Sherdog's audience does not exactly run warm on influencer crossover content, and the skeptical framing there is the site's version of a raised eyebrow that could knock someone over. "Claims" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that headline, darlings.

Is it confirmed though? MMA Sucka reported that Tsarukyan himself revealed N3on will join him in the corner and also confirmed the UFC 331 walkout song, treating both details as equally settled facts in the same breath. When the fighter is the one announcing it, Sherdog's "claims" framing starts to look a little wobbly.

The Sherdog corner also raised the Chimaev angle without much ceremony, which is the detail that has people doing double-takes. If accurate, N3on would be sharing a corner with one of the most physically intimidating fighters on the UFC roster, a man who has not historically made space for spectacle. Whether Chimaev is enthusiastic about this arrangement or simply in the vicinity remains, per available reporting, unclear.

And if this feels familiar, it's because N3on spent weeks making a $250K offer to corner Tsarukyan under specific conditions before the whole thing became official. The audacity of the arc, from the offer to a Sherdog headline to Ruffy publicly reacting, is genuinely impressive as a PR operation even if you think the whole thing is ridiculous.

Prediction: someone at the UFC press table is going to have to answer a question about this, and that answer is going to be its own news cycle.