Arman Tsarukyan still sees himself as the man at the front of the contender line in the lightweight division.
This past January, Tsarukyan was supposed to challenge lightweight champion Islam Makhachev in the main event of UFC 311. Unfortunately for Tsarukyan, he was forced out by a fight week back injury and replaced by Renato Moicano, who Makhachev defeated.
Afterwards, UFC CEO Dana White said Tsarukyan had missed his chance and he would have to fight his way back to the title, a suggestion Tsarukyan has been in agreement with. It seems he has the perfect name in mind as he targeted matchup with Justin Gaethje on social media.
Gaethje is coming off of an impressive decision win over Rafael Fiziev this past Saturday at UFC 313 and he made his case for a title shot in a tweet tagging White. Tsarukyan quoted Gaethje’s tweet and responded, “You barely got past No. 11 on short notice, and before that, you got sent to the shadow realm. If you really want to be the No. 1 contender and fight for the belt, you have to go through me first.”
Were it not for timing not working out, Gaethje would have likely already earned another shot at the lightweight title after a spectacular head kick of Dustin Poirier at UFC 291. However, Poirier rebounded with a win and ended up leap-frogging Gaethje to earn a shot at Makhachev, while Gaethje went on to lose to Max Holloway at UFC 300 via a dramatic last-second knockout.
Tsarukyan earned his championship opportunity on the strength of a 9-1 run, with a split nod over Charles Oliveira in his most recent outing. He lost his UFC debut to Makhachev in April 2019 and seeks to finally step into the octagon for a rematch with the lightweight great.
