Arman Tsarukyan is someone who could present a stiff test for Ilia Topuria according to a recently victorious UFC lightweight. Kyle Nelson is the combatant in question who thinks this and the former UFC featherweight introduced himself to the lightweight scene in a big way at UFC Vancouver.

‘The Monster’ secured a win against Matt Frevola over the weekend with Frevola being a former opponent of Arman Tsarukyan, someone who was supposed to fight for the 155 pound title in January.

Touching on a few tendrils of this situation, Kyle Nelson has also fought Jai Herbert in the UFC previously, someone who in a lot of people’s estimation gave current lightweight titleholder Ilia Topuria, one of his tougher fights inside of the cage.

Arman Tsarukyan is “a big lightweight that might be able to put his weight on” Ilia Topuria, says Kyle Nelson

Considering all aforementioned connections, when asked for his thoughts on Ilia Topuria as the UFC lightweight champion now that Nelson is plying his trade as a 155er going forward, Kyle Nelson said [via MMA Canada],

“I mean, Ilia’s been on a pretty good run. Knocking out some people that you haven’t seen knocked out like Max Holloway, the [Alexander] Volkanovski fight. Again, I think everybody’s kind of already said this, but it might have been a little bit too soon after the knockout.”

“But you can’t deny his [Topuria’s] skill set. He’s gone in there with guys like Bryce Mitchell… [Ryan] Hall, but like really great jiu-jitsu guys and he’s held his own. You haven’t really seen him out wrestled. You haven’t seen him out struck. So he’s definitely; I think we’re going to see him sit at the top for a while.”

“And the biggest challenge I could see him running into might be someone like Arman [Tsarukyan], just like a big lightweight that might be able to put his weight on him. We saw against [Charles] Oliveira when they were against the fence. It looked a little bit like maybe Oliveira had a little bit of like size and strength on Topuria.”

“So, it’ll be interesting to see somebody like Arman put Topuria in a position like that and see how he responds. But definitely in the striking, I mean, I don’t see anybody kind of putting together like that kind of same crisp, clean boxing with that knockout power.”