{"id":300687,"date":"2025-11-22T04:08:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T04:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/300687\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T04:08:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T04:08:11","slug":"tsarukyan-on-pre-fight-hooker-headbutt-in-qatar-no-one-can-scare-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/300687\/","title":{"rendered":"Tsarukyan on pre-fight Hooker headbutt in Qatar: \u2018No one can scare me\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Things got pretty crazy during the UFC Qatar ceremonial weigh-ins when Arman Tsarukyan decided to use the standard face-off with Dan Hooker to headbutt his opponent<\/a> in the face.<\/p>\n

Hooker shook the attack off and is fine, but it\u2019s the kind of thing that could have easily cut him open and cancelled the fight before it even started. If the incident had happened under the watchful eye of a proper North American commission, the fight may have been called off right there. And this isn\u2019t the first time Tsarukyan has popped off<\/a> like this.<\/p>\n

Speaking to ESPN following the incident, Tsarukyan explained what happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe tried to scare me, but no one can scare me,\u201d Tsarukyan said. \u201cHe wanted to scare me and I automatically wanted to kick his ass, you know? No one should try to scare me or try to punch me or whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAhalkalakets\u201d is clearly in war mode and promised he\u2019d punish Hooker for whatever it is he did to deserve the pre-fight assault.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got twenty five minutes, and now I wanna make him so tired and just cut his old face and not finish him too early,\u201d Tsarukyan declared. \u201cI wanna get his life, you know, make him hard damage. That\u2019s my goal now right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watching the incident on stage with an unbothered look on his face was current lightweight champion Ilia Topuria, who is in Doha to corner his brother Aleksandre. UFC CEO Dana White has said a win over Hooker would earn Tsarukyan a title shot,<\/a> so you can expect a challenge if Arman earns the win on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I got a message [for Topuria],\u201d Tsarukyan said. \u201cBut after my win, I\u2019ll say what I wanna say.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Things got pretty crazy during the UFC Qatar ceremonial weigh-ins when Arman Tsarukyan decided to use the standard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85,1396],"class_list":{"0":"post-300687","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-mma","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300687","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=300687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}