{"id":704691,"date":"2026-05-30T17:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T17:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/704691\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T17:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T17:14:08","slug":"arman-tsarukyan-declines-to-weigh-in-for-ufc-white-house-backup-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/704691\/","title":{"rendered":"Arman Tsarukyan\u00a0Declines To Weigh In For UFC White House Backup Role"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arman Tsarukyan may have been named the official backup<\/a> for the lightweight title fight between UFC champion Ilia Topuria and Justin Gaethje next month at UFC\u2019s White House card, but the No. 2-ranked contender doesn\u2019t even intend to weigh in.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s safe to say Tsarukyan and UFC officials have not seen eye-to-eye in a fairly long time. Ever since Tsarukyan pulled out of his title fight with Islam Makhachev back at UFC 311 in Jan. 2025 the promotion has found it difficult to trust him in big spots. That\u2019s probably why Tsarukyan has only fought once over the past two years. The problematic lightweight has stayed busy outside of the Octagon with wrestling matches<\/a> and a social media takeover tour<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, it appeared things were looking up for Tsarukyan after UFC CEO, Dana White, named him the official backup<\/a> for Topuria vs. Gaethje. It was a sign of good things to come for Tsarukyan, but it now appears the controversial lightweight fighter doesn\u2019t even plan to weigh in. This would void his chances of serving as a title fight backup (once again letting the promotion down).<\/p>\n

Instead, Tsarukyan plans to focus on his scheduled wrestling match<\/a> with UFC veteran Tony Ferguson at RAF 10 on June 13. Tsarukyan is confident that Topuria and Gaethje will both make it to the fight and he\u2019ll simply wait to fight the winner.<\/p>\n

Check it out below and don\u2019t forget Tsarukyan is back in action later tonight (Sat., May 30, 2026) at RAF 09!<\/p>\n

\u201cI have wrestling on June 13, we will see,\u201d said Tsarukyan on Thursday when asked about his dual obligations next month. \u201cI\u2019m a back-up, but everything is going good, there\u2019s two weeks left so I think they\u2019re going to fight and I\u2019m going to wait my chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I\u2019m going to do RAF,\u201d responded Tsarukyan when asked if he intends to weigh in for his White House backup role.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arman Tsarukyan may have been named the official backup for the lightweight title fight between UFC champion Ilia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":704692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396,125620],"class_list":["post-704691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news","tag-ufc-white-house-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704691","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=704691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}