{"id":197214,"date":"2025-10-08T07:40:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T07:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/197214\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T07:40:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T07:40:14","slug":"tsarukyan-vs-hooker-now-no-1-contender-fight-at-ufc-qatar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/197214\/","title":{"rendered":"Tsarukyan vs. Hooker now No. 1 contender fight at UFC Qatar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The stakes for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-fight-announcements\/392948\/what-was-dana-whites-big-announcement-ufc-qatars-main-event-booked-which-could-affect-ilia-topuria\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UFC Qatar<\/a> have been significantly raised.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">That\u2019s because Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Lightweights Arman Tsarukyan and Dan Hooker, who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-fight-announcements\/392948\/what-was-dana-whites-big-announcement-ufc-qatars-main-event-booked-which-could-affect-ilia-topuria\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">headline UFC Qatar next month<\/a> (Sat., Oct. 4, 2025) will square off for the right to challenge Ilia Topuria next year, UFC CEO Dana White confirmed during the UFC 320 post-fight press conference (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=k_OXaYXuFKo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">watch here<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI mean, every weekend when we do these things, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/videos\/2023\/11\/29\/23981667\/video-fight-breaks-loose-inside-ufc-austin-hotel-bobby-green-punches-arman-tsarukyan-teammate\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">there\u2019s all kinds of crazy shit that happens<\/a>,\u201d White said. \u201cJust the shit that happens in the UFC P.I \u2014 I mean, imagine the people who run into each other over there all the time. It\u2019s part of the business. And you know, we don\u2019t beef up any extra security because we think guys are talking shit. It\u2019s part of the business.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cIt\u2019s not personal, it\u2019s business,\u201d Tsarukyan told Ariel Helwani. \u201cIn real life, he is gonna shut his mouth, and he won\u2019t say anything about me. If its media or a lot of people, of course, he can do something. [I\u2019ve never seen him in person], but I\u2019m going to see him in Qatar.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cHe knows media and security are going to be there. He\u2019s gonna behave like a hooker \u2014 he\u2019s like that with cameras because he knows nobody\u2019s gonna touch him,\u201d Tsarukyan added. \u201cHe\u2019s going to talk about but a lot of brothers are going to come with me, and hopefully they\u2019re gonna stop me. I shouldn\u2019t do anything crazy. I just got to be focused because I\u2019m going to have 25 minutes to beat his ass.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Hooker\u2019s aggressive posture and Tsarukyan\u2019s cool confidence set the table for a combustible main event. With a No. 1 contender spot \u2014 and a shot at Topuria \u2014 on the line, expect fight week in Qatar to be tense, heated, and impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The stakes for UFC Qatar have been significantly raised. That\u2019s because Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Lightweights Arman Tsarukyan&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396,14855],"class_list":{"0":"post-197214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc-news","15":"tag-videos"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197214","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=197214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}