{"id":315076,"date":"2025-11-29T21:18:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T21:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/315076\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T21:18:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T21:18:10","slug":"arman-tsarukyan-calls-for-shot-at-bmf-belt-after-ufc-title-snub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/315076\/","title":{"rendered":"Arman Tsarukyan calls for shot at BMF belt after UFC title snub"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Brett OkamotoNov 29, 2025, 03:06 PM ET<\/p>\n

Close<\/a>Brett Okamoto has reported on mixed martial arts and boxing at ESPN since 2010. He has covered all of the biggest events in combat sports during that time, including in-depth interviews and features with names such as Dana White, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Conor McGregor, Nate Diaz, Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao and Georges St-Pierre. He was also a producer on the 30 for 30 film: “Chuck and Tito,” which looked back at the careers and rivalry of Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz. He lives in Las Vegas, and is an avid, below-average golfer in his spare time.<\/p>\n

UFC lightweight contender Arman Tsarukyan<\/a> is calling for a BMF bout against Max Holloway<\/a>, in the wake of the UFC’s decision to skip over him in an interim lightweight title fight next month.<\/p>\n

Tsarukyan (23-3) is the No. 1-ranked contender at 155 pounds, but the UFC opted to book an interim title bout between Justin Gaethje<\/a> and Paddy Pimblett<\/a> — who are ranked Nos. 4 and 5, respectively — as the main event of UFC 324<\/a> on Jan. 24 in Las Vegas. The UFC created an interim belt after undisputed champion Ilia Topuria<\/a> announced he was taking time off to deal with personal issues<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Tsarukyan told ESPN it was “hard” to accept the news, but said he can’t sit and wait for the situation to change.<\/p>\n

“It’s a business,” Tsarukyan said. “At the end of the day, I have the same goal. Everybody knows that I will beat everybody and it’s just [a matter of] time. I hope they give me the BMF title at least. What are they going to give me? Who do we have in our division to fight if it’s not Holloway?”<\/p>\n

Holloway (27-8) is coming off a five-round decision win<\/a> against Dustin Poirier<\/a> in July. He has expressed interest in a bout against former champion Charles Oliveira<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tsarukyan, of Armenia, said he believes the UFC is doing whatever it can to promote and fast-track Pimblett (23-3), and that he hopes Gaethje (26-5) puts an end to it in January. He said he would even offer to help Gaethje train for the matchup.<\/p>\n

“Justin, if you need the help, let me know and I’ll fly to you,” Tsarukyan said. “I want him to [beat] that bulls— guy. I hate him. He’s such a b—-. I don’t want to be [at UFC 324] because I’m going to fight with somebody. If I see Patty, I would like to slap him.”<\/p>\n

The winner of next month’s interim title fight is expected to face Topuria later in 2026, according to UFC CEO Dana White, which means Tsarukyan could be looking at as much as a year before his next opportunity opens for the belt. Despite that, the 29-year-old says he’s very confident he will eventually win the belt, and face Topuria if he doesn’t retire first.<\/p>\n

“That [Topuria] fight is going to happen for sure,” Tsarukyan said. “Everybody is saying, ‘Arman, Arman, Arman.’ Everybody knows it’s bulls—. The next champion is here.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brett OkamotoNov 29, 2025, 03:06 PM ET CloseBrett Okamoto has reported on mixed martial arts and boxing at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-315076","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-mma","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315076","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=315076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}