Arman Tsarukyan re-cemented his position as the rightful No. 1 contender at lightweight with a crushing first round knockout of Mauricio Ruffy at UFC 331. A lot of people saw “Batman” beating Ruffy, but not the way he did it: with two massive elbows that sent his Brazilian opponent crashing to the canvas unconscious (highlights here).
“They don’t know my skills,” Arman declared. “So in training, I do some crazy things that no nobody’s even seem in this room yet. But, if I’m gonna keep fighting often, you’re gonna see a lot of different tricks that I can do. And yeah, he can defend my wrestling, but he cannot defend my striking. I told everybody, yeah he can defend my wrestling. He can do this, that, but I’m when I’m gonna mix it up, it’s gonna be different.”
UFC 331 was a big deal for Tsarukyan. This was a return to Los Angeles, where he was forced to pull out of his title fight against Islam Makhachev at the last minute. Los Angeles, which is also home to a massive amount of rabid Armenian MMA fans.
“Every fight is pressure for me, you know?” Tsarukyan said. “It’s not a joke, because I wanna be UFC champion and every fight for me is so important. This fight is important too because [of the] finish and [I] showed a great performance. And when I’m gonna see the bosses, they’re not gonna say ‘It was a boring decision, and you wanna fight for the title?’”
“I knocked him out in the first round, and they can see the crowd, the people, and my ability in the cage.”
Tsarukyan certainly did enough to earn a title shot, but whether he’ll get the next one is still up for debate. The UFC has a big money rematch between 155 pound champ Justin Gaethje and Ilia Topuria ready to go, and Arman believes Gaethje doesn’t want to fight him.
“He never says my name, so he’s scared,” Tsarukyan said. “He knows he wanted Ruffy to knock me out, so it means he’s trying to avoid me. And he’s gonna try to call out Ilia Topuria or tell UFC, ‘I want 15 million for Arman Tsarukyan or I’m retired,’ and he’s gonna play around on the bulls–t game.”
“But you see, either he’s gonna fight me or he’s gotta leave the title, give the opportunity for the young guys. We have a lot of contenders right now.”
Tsarukyan added that he wasn’t particularly fixated on fighting any individual for the belt.
“I don’t care, to be honest,” he said. “I just want to fight for the title and become champion, no matter who’s gonna be against me.”
For now, it looks like Tsarukyan has punched his ticket to a title shot. When he can actually get said title shot is the only question left.
