Arman Tsarukyan re-cemented his position as a legitimate No. 1 contender lightweight Mauricio Ruffy with a crushing first-round knockout at UFC 331. Many people saw “Batman” beat Luffy, but not the way he did it: with two massive elbows that sent his Brazilian opponent unconscious to the canvas. (highlights here).
“They don’t know my skills,” Arman declared. “So I’m doing crazy things in training that you can’t see in this room yet. But if I keep fighting a lot, you’ll see a lot of different tricks I can do. And yeah, he can guard my wrestling, but he can’t guard my striking. I told everybody, yeah, he can guard my wrestling than me, but I can mix it up. It’s going to be different.”
UFC 331 was a big deal for Tsarukyan. It was a return to Los Angeles where he was forced to pull out of his title fight against Islam Makhachov in the last minute. Los Angeles, which is also home to a large number of rabid Armenian MMA fans.
“Every fight is pressure for me, you know?” Tsarukyan said. “It’s not a joke because I want to be UFC champion and every fight is so important to me. This fight is also important because of (the finish) and because of (my) great performance. And when I see the bosses, they’re not going to say, ‘That was a boring decision and you want to fight for the title?'”
“I knocked him out in the first round and they see the crowd in the cage, the people and my ability.”
Tsarukyan certainly did enough to earn a title shot, but whether he gets the next one is still up for debate. UFC has a big money rematch between 155-pound champion 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 Luffy to knock me out, so that means he’s trying to avoid me. And he’s going to try to call Ilia Topuria or tell the UFC, ‘I want 15 million for Arman Tsarukyan or I’m retired,’ and he’s going to play bull.
“But you’ll see if he fights me or has to give up the title, give the young guys a chance. We’ve got a lot of contenders now.”
Tsarukyan added that he was not particularly attached to fighting any one person for the belt.
“I don’t care, to be honest,” he said. “I want to fight for the title and become the champion, no matter who is against me.”
Right now, Tsarukyan seems to have punched his ticket to the title race. The only question is when he will actually get the title.
