{"id":408660,"date":"2026-01-12T17:07:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T17:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/408660\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T17:07:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T17:07:10","slug":"ufc-want-to-make-paddy-pimblett-lightweight-champion-says-arman-tsarukyan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/408660\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC want to make Paddy Pimblett lightweight champion, says Arman Tsarukyan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arman Tsarukyan says he was overlooked for an interim lightweight title shot because the UFC “wants to make” Paddy Pimblett champion.<\/p>\n

Liverpool’s Pimblett will face American Justin Gaethje<\/a> for the interim belt on 24 January, with number one contender Tsarukyan snubbed.<\/p>\n

The match-up was a surprise, considering Gaethje is ranked fourth with Pimblett at number five.<\/p>\n

Tsarukyan suggested Pimblett’s star power secured him the fight.<\/p>\n

“They know if they’re going to put me against him, he’s going to lose and the star is going to be gone,” said Tsarukyan after he returned to action in a wrestling match over the weekend.<\/p>\n

“Gaethje is easy money for him. He’s old, he has maybe one or two fights left.<\/p>\n

“So that’s why they give him the interim title shot because he’s not going to be a real champion, because there’s Ilia Topuria, and I never think he can beat Ilia Topuria.”<\/p>\n

UFC president Dana White has been coy about why he overlooked Tsarukyan for the interim title fight, but did admit the 29-year-old headbutting Dan Hooker<\/a> at a weigh-in before his last win contributed to the decision.<\/p>\n

Tsarukyan also pulled out of a title fight with Islam Makhachev<\/a> in January 2025 in fight week.<\/p>\n

Lightweight champion Ilia Topuria, 28, is currently taking a break from fighting due to personal reasons surrounding his family.<\/p>\n

The UFC decided to do an interim bout in his absence and fans would expect Tsarukyan to fight the winner of Gaethje v Pimblett if the interim title holder is upgraded to full champion or if Topuria’s return was further delayed.<\/p>\n

Tsarukyan, however, is pessimistic about 31-year-old Pimblett ever agreeing to fight him.<\/p>\n

“I’m a nightmare for him and he knows that if we’re going to fight, he’s going to lose. He’s going to try not to fight me his whole life,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I hope that Justin Gaethje is going to knock him out.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arman Tsarukyan says he was overlooked for an interim lightweight title shot because the UFC “wants to make”…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-408660","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"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408660","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=408660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}