UFC legend Chael Sonnen spoke out against what he sees as unfair treatment of top lightweight Arman Tsarukyan by the promotional brass.<\/p>\n
Top UFC lightweight contender Arman Tsarukyan will have to wait a bit longer for another shot at the title ahead of UFC 324.<\/p>\n
UFC 324, headlined by an interim title fight between Justin Gaethje and Paddy Pimblett, is days away in Las Vegas. Despite a recent stoppage win over Dan Hooker, Tsarukyan was left out of the interim title discussion amidst Ilia Topuria\u2019s ongoing absence.<\/p>\n
UFC CEO Dana White recently admitted that some of Tsarukyan\u2019s questionable behavior outside of the cage<\/a>, including headbutting Hooker at the UFC Qatar ceremonial weigh-in, has indefinitely postponed Tsarukyan getting another title shot. He also withdrew on short notice at UFC 311 last year due to a supposed back injury suffered just hours before the event.<\/p>\n UFC legend Chael Sonnen doesn\u2019t agree with White\u2019s stance and believes Tsarukyan deserves another crack at the belt.<\/p>\n Chael Sonnen: UFC should move on from Arman Tsarukyan snubs and grant title shot<\/p>\n During a recent interview with The Schmo<\/a>, Sonnen weighed in on the UFC\u2019s latest dismissal of Tsarukyan.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cCan we please forgive him?\u201d Sonnen said of Tsarukyan. \u201cWhatever he did to get himself in this weird purgatory, can we also remember that he agreed to be a backup fighter? That he did a training camp, that he flew out to Las Vegas, he went through the commission, he made weight. He was ready to go in a moment\u2019s notice. You get something for that. I want him to get something. I want him recognized. I forgive Arman Tsarukyan, and I want other people to forgive him.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t really know what\u2019s going on with Ilia Topuria, in fairness, then Islam (Makhachev) doesn\u2019t look like he\u2019s going to come back to the weight class, but he says he\u2019s going to,\u201d Sonnen continued. \u201cI don\u2019t know if Tsarukyan is being punished as much as the narrative says. I think that there\u2019s a little bit of a waiting pattern. He was told that if he beats Hooker, that his next fight will be for the title. He has not been booked for his next fight, so there is a chance that this plan is still intact.\u201d (h\/t MMA Junkie<\/a>)<\/p>\n As of this writing, Topuria is targeting a return to the Octagon sometime in Quarter 2 of the year (April-June), meaning a likely showdown with the Pimblett vs. Gaethje winner. If Topuria vacates the lightweight title, Tsarukyan would likely be next in line for a vacant title shot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC legend Chael Sonnen spoke out against what he sees as unfair treatment of top lightweight Arman Tsarukyan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[15504,49,48,31771,641,638,82,640,153471],"class_list":{"0":"post-422365","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-arman-tsarukyan","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-chael-sonnen","12":"tag-fighting","13":"tag-mma","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-ufc","16":"tag-ufc-324"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422365","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=422365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}