The Nevada Athletic Commission suspended Arman Tsarukyan, the UFC’s #1 ranked lightweight contender, for nine months on Tuesday. The suspension comes 10 weeks after Tsarukyan got into an altercation with a fan at UFC 300.

The suspension, which can be reduced to six months if Tsarukyan does an anti-bullying PSA video, also came with a $25,000 fine.

The incident happened during Tsarukyan’s walk out to the Octagon ahead of his 155-pound showdown vs. former lightweight champion Charles ‘Do Bronx’ Oliveira. Tsarukyan defeated Oliveira via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28) for his fourth straight win. He’s 9-1 in his last 10 scraps since losing a unanimous decision to current lightweight champion, Islam Makhachev, in April of 2019.

In explaining the incident at his post-fight media scrum, Tsarukyan said, “He showed me ‘F*ck you’ and he wanted to punch me and I wanted to punch him back. That’s it. So guys, no one show me ‘F*ck you.’ It doesn’t matter who you are, I’m going to punch you in the face.”

Although nothing is close to being official, there’s been plenty of speculation that Makhachev will make his next title defense on Oct. 26 in Abu Dhabi.

If Tsarukyan makes the video to get the suspension reduced to six months, (his manager Daniel Rubenstein confirmed to MMAFighting that he would), he would be eligible to fight again on Oct. 13, six months after UFC 300.

So hopefully, this situation won’t cost Tsarukyan a title shot. Whatever the case, it’s still likely that if we don’t get Makhachev-Tsarukyan 2 in 2024, this rematch is eventually going down in the not-too-distant future.