Arman Tsarukyan made quite a statement that he should be next for lightweight champion Ilia Topuria after mauling Dan Hooker in the UFC Qatar main event.<\/p>\n
Despite a lengthy layoff that was exacerbated by an injury that cost him a title shot in January, Tsarukyan didn\u2019t skip a beat on Saturday as he was dominant from start to finish. On the feet, Tsarukyan actually landed some very solid strikes including a knee that definitely rattled Hooker in an early exchange.<\/p>\n
But once the fight hit the floor, Tsarukyan showed how this fight was a mismatch as he battered Hooker with some truly gruesome punches and elbows before latching onto an arm triangle choke to get the tap. The end came at 3:34 in the second round as Tsarukyan extends his win streak to five in a row overall.<\/p>\n
\u201cFeeling great. Thank Dan because of him, I fought this year,\u201d Tsarukyan said afterwards. \u201cOnly guy who wanted to fight me. Ilia, if you\u2019re here, come on. There is just one contender No. 1. It\u2019s Arman Tsarukyan. Everybody knows I\u2019ve got to fight for the title. I\u2019m ready. End of January, send me contract, I\u2019ll be there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody can stop me in the cage. I\u2019m the best in the world and I\u2019m going to be a champion. I work so hard, so smart, I dedicate all my life for this sport and it pays off this day.\u201d<\/p>\n
A takedown attempt from Tsarukyan in the opening round was thwarted but on Hooker\u2019s escape, he connected with a huge knee up the middle. Hooker was wobbled from the knee and Tsarukyan followed it up with a hard combination of punches that landed clean.<\/p>\n
Hooker recovered enough to fire back and worked his way to the clinch where he actually grabbed from a guillotine choke. Tsarukyan resisted before scrambling to escape and he ended up on top of Hooker where he began dropping elbows and setting up potential submissions.<\/p>\n
A solid start in round two from Hooker once again led to an ill-fated guillotine choke attempt that ended with Tsarukyan on top of him. From there, Tsarukyan was unloading with some vicious ground and pound trying to put Hooker away.<\/p>\n
The assault continued with Tsarukyan just doing maximum damage and Hooker holding onto survive. After moving into mount, Tsarukyan just kept pounding away until he saw an opening to grab the arm-triangle choke.<\/p>\n
With a vice-like grip on the submission, Tsarukyan just tightened his hold and Hooker eventually faded before tapping out to end the fight. Tsarukyan has looked unstoppable lately and he adds another ranked fighter to his resume after dispatching Hooker inside two rounds.<\/p>\n
All signs seemed to point towards Topuria making his first title defense against Paddy Pimblett in early 2026 but if that doesn\u2019t come together, Tsarukyan certainly made a compelling case that he actually deserves the next title shot.<\/p>\n
Whether that comes early next year or he has to wait for a little while, Tsarukyan has definitely done his part and he looks like the best possible foil to Topuria\u2019s title reign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arman Tsarukyan made quite a statement that he should be next for lightweight champion Ilia Topuria after mauling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-302195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302195","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=302195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}