{"id":710450,"date":"2026-06-02T13:40:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T13:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/710450\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T13:40:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T13:40:20","slug":"tsarukyan-wants-weeks-notice-to-step-in-for-ufc-white-house-main-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/710450\/","title":{"rendered":"Tsarukyan wants week\u2019s notice to step in for UFC White House main event"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arman Tsarukyan will still be the backup fighter for the UFC White House main event between Ilia Topuria and Justin Gaethje, although he doesn\u2019t intend on weighing in<\/a> for a fight unless he\u2019s actually going to compete.<\/p>\n

In the past, backup fighters have shown up on fight week and cut weight and made weight so that they can step in should something happen to a main event fighter during the weight cut. Plenty of championship fights have fallen apart after one competitor or another missed weight, or falls ill due to a botched cut.<\/p>\n

Tsarukyan certainly knows this considering he pulled out<\/a> of his lightweight title shot against Islam Makhachev due to a bad weight cut back in January 2025.<\/p>\n

But according to Tsarukyan, he\u2019ll only step in as a backup if something happens to one of the fighters withdraws in the week leading up to UFC White House on Sunday June 14th.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation is I\u2019m a backup for this fight,\u201d Tsarukyan told Ariel Helwani. \u201cIf something happens, I\u2019m gonna fly there and make the weight and win and fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re only gonna weigh in if you have the fight officially?\u201d Helwani asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d Tsarukyan replied.<\/p>\n

Tsarukyan went on to suggest that the UFC would have to inform him he\u2019s fighting about a week out from the UFC White House event for him to make weight.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe like one week before, yeah, is possible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not much of a backup, given how often weight issues are the reason behind last-minute fight changes. But considering the size and scale of the UFC event and Dana White booking the event full of athletes known to compete no matter what,<\/a> maybe it\u2019s no big deal.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s hope it\u2019s no big deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arman Tsarukyan will still be the backup fighter for the UFC White House main event between Ilia Topuria…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85,125620],"class_list":["post-710450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-white-house-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710450","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=710450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}