{"id":656250,"date":"2026-05-08T15:43:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T15:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/656250\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T15:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T15:43:09","slug":"tsarukyan-to-serve-as-backup-for-topuria-gaethje-at-ufc-whi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/656250\/","title":{"rendered":"Tsarukyan to serve as backup for Topuria-Gaethje at UFC Whi\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Arman Tsarukyan will serve as the backup fighter for the lightweight title bout between Ilia Topuria and Justin Gaethje at the UFC White House event on June 14.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Arman is the backup for the White House fight,&#8221; UFC CEO Dana White said during Nina-Marie Daniele&#8217;s stream Thursday night, according to X user <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ChampRDS\/status\/2052564499845066995?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">ChampRDS<\/a>. &#8220;If anything happens to that fight, Arman&#8217;s in there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Tsarukyan, the No. 2-ranked lightweight, last stepped into the Octagon in November, when he submitted Dan Hooker in the second round of the UFC Qatar main event.<\/p>\n<p>The 29-year-old is unbeaten since June 2022 and riding a five-fight winning streak, which includes a split decision over former champ Charles Oliveira at UFC 300.<\/p>\n<p>Tsarukyan&#8217;s manager, Daniel Rubenstein, expects Tsarukyan to challenge for the title before the end of the year if he doesn&#8217;t fill in at the White House, he told <a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/sports\/ufc\/arman-tsarukyans-manager-explains-backup-spot\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Heavy.com&#8217;s Marcel Dorff<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Topuria is defending the 155-pound title for the first time against Gaethje, who claimed the interim belt in a unanimous decision victory over Paddy Pimblett at UFC 324 in January.<\/p>\n<p>The bout between Topuria and Gaethje is scheduled to headline the promotion&#8217;s historic card at the White House. An interim heavyweight title fight between Ciryl Gane and Alex Pereira will serve as the co-main event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arman Tsarukyan will serve as the backup fighter for the lightweight title bout between Ilia Topuria and Justin&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":["post-656250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656250","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=656250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}