{"id":153896,"date":"2025-09-19T07:48:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T07:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/153896\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T07:48:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T07:48:07","slug":"arman-tsarukyan-more-likely-to-be-pimblett-than-gaethje-for-ufc-title-shot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/153896\/","title":{"rendered":"Arman Tsarukyan “more likely to be Pimblett than Gaethje” for UFC title shot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arman Tsarukyan leans more toward Paddy Pimblett than Justin Gaethje as far as who will get the next shot at the UFC lightweight championship. After halting Charles Oliveira<\/a> with strikes at UFC 317, newly minted UFC 155-pound titleholder Ilia Topuria is still awaiting his first title defense.<\/p>\n

While many do think Tsarukyan is potentially next up for the title, there is a chance that the promotion pursues other options outside of the number two-ranked contender. Justin Gaethje is the number five-ranked lightweight, has often come through for the promotion in tight spots, but he has also secured multiple prior title shots. While Pimblett is ranked number seven at lightweight, he has the longest-running narrative with Topuria as the two have had an outside of the octagon rivalry for years now.<\/p>\n

When giving an overview of the lightweight division and how he sees things playing out there at the championship as well as title contender level, Tsarukyan said,<\/p>\n

\u201c[Justin] Gaethje won\u2019t fight [Ilia] Topuria\u2026 I think it\u2019s more likely to be [Paddy] Pimblett than Gaethje. I think he\u2019ll defend his title, and if Islam [Makhachev]<\/a> wins the title, he\u2019ll move up to 170 and want to become a triple champ\u2026 He won\u2019t want to fight me because he can make more money fighting Islam, and he has the chance to become the first ever triple champion in history and earn big money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arman Tsarukyan competes tomorrow with a former UFC lightweight champion<\/p>\n

Arman Tsarukyan will be testing skills against an individual who is interwoven in that UFC lightweight title lineage. That combatant in question was also the WEC lightweight champion previously. Tsarukyan will be taking on Benson Henderson<\/a> in a submission grappling contest at ACBJJ 18 on September 19th.<\/p>\n

Before the action kicks off at Dynamo Volleyball Arena in Moscow, Russia, there was a press conference held to further spotlight this clash between the past and present of UFC lightweight competitors.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arman Tsarukyan leans more toward Paddy Pimblett than Justin Gaethje as far as who will get the next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[17501,64,63,786,17499,8944,785,17498,85],"class_list":["post-153896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-arman-tsarukyan","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-ilia-topuria","tag-justin-gaethje","tag-mma","tag-paddy-pimblett","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}