Should Arman Tsarukyan take care of business in the main event of UFC Qatar, he\u2019ll be ready to face Ilia Topuria as soon as possible.<\/p>\n
Tsarukyan faces Dan Hooker in the five-round headliner of Saturday\u2019s Fight Night event at Ali Bin Hamad al-Attiyah Arena in Doha. The UFC is about to shift over to Paramount in January, and rumor and innuendo has suggested that Ilia Topuria could defend his lightweight title for the first time on that card. However, the UFC has yet to announce anything in regards to that event, or anything for 2026 at this point.<\/p>\n
With everything up in the air, Tsarukyan would be willing to make a quick turnaround to face Topuria in January if he\u2019s victorious on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I don\u2019t want to wait,\u201d Tsarukyan told MMA Fighting. \u201cIf I perform very well [against Hooker] and the UFC said, \u2018Can you fight in January?\u2019 I\u2019ll take that fight right away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tsarukyan makes his first appearance since defeating Charles Oliveira at UFC 300 in April 2024. The 29-year-old was scheduled to challenge Islam Makhachev for the lightweight title at January\u2019s UFC 311 event, but Tsarukyan was scratched from the bout one day before the event due to a back injury.<\/p>\n
With his first fight in 17 months just days away, Tsarukyan knows that this is more than just a normal matchup as he\u2019s putting a lot on the line against Hooker, a rival that his won his past three bouts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means everything for me,\u201d Tsarukyan said. \u201cIf I lose, I\u2019ll lose everything. If I win, I win everything as well. So this is like a title fight for me. It\u2019s five rounds, main event, and this fight, I must win and I get my title fight. It\u2019s an important fight for me, and that\u2019s why I\u2019m focused. I\u2019m very focused on this fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lightweight division is now championed by Topuria who captured the title vacated by Islam Makhachev at UFC 317 in June. Topuria knocked out Oliveira in the first round to become the UFC\u2019s 10th two-division world champion.<\/p>\n
As far as who could stand across from Topuria in his first title defense, the two names being thrown out the most are former interim champ Justin Gaethje, and rising lightweight star Paddy Pimblett, who most recently dominated and finished Michael Chandler at UFC 314 in April.<\/p>\n
While Pimblett appears to be the favorite for the championship bout, Tsarukyan says it could happen \u2014 although Tsarukyan feels Pimblett hasn\u2019t done enough to earn it \u2014 but it certainly won\u2019t be Gaethje getting the shot.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, he doesn\u2019t deserve to fight for the title,\u201d Tsarukyan explained. \u201cHe\u2019s got to beat someone from top-five, and like a top fighter. Not a guy who has three or four [fight losing streak]. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cUFC wants Paddy for sure, and they\u2019re going to see how it plays plays out this Saturday, and then they\u2019re going to figure out who is fighting.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s 100 percent not Gaethje. It\u2019s Paddy or me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Should Arman Tsarukyan take care of business in the main event of UFC Qatar, he\u2019ll be ready to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702,3194],"class_list":{"0":"post-298359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news","16":"tag-videos"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}