Tsarukyan targets Gaethje title shot after injury exile: 'Nobody can beat me right now'

Arman Tsarukyan has positioned himself as the mandatory challenger for Justin Gaethje’s newly won UFC lightweight title, insisting no fighter remaining at 155 pounds poses a genuine threat to him after Gaethje’s fourth-round corner stoppage of Ilia Topuria at UFC White House.

“I want to beat Justin Gaethje. I want to beat everybody,” Tsarukyan (23-3) said on The Ariel Helwani Show. “And when Ilia is gonna be ready, if I’m gonna be a champion, I would like to do [to him] same as Justin did, even worse… I know I can beat Ilia, and I know how I can beat Justin… Only one guy [Islam Makhachev] who was tough, and he moved up to 170. Nobody in lightweight division can beat me right now.”

Gaethje’s victory over Topuria (17-1) was widely described as one of the greatest upsets in UFC title fight history. The Armenian-Russian contender views the result as confirmation that the division’s landscape has shifted in his favour, with former champion Makhachev having vacated the lightweight picture by moving up to welterweight.

Tsarukyan’s road to a title shot has been complicated by misfortune. He dropped a decision to Makhachev in his UFC debut back in 2019, but had earned a rematch for the lightweight belt last year — only to withdraw the day before the fight due to injury. That late pullout effectively removed him from title contention despite a strong run of form that left many observers considering him the division’s most deserving challenger.

Now, with Gaethje holding the belt and Topuria sidelined following the defeat, Tsarukyan sees a clear path. He made no attempt to hide his ambitions regarding a potential future meeting with Topuria either, suggesting he would inflict an even more decisive beating than Gaethje managed if the Georgian returns to lightweight while Tsarukyan is champion.

Whether the UFC moves to book Tsarukyan as Gaethje’s first title defence remains to be seen, but the 27-year-old’s confidence — and his argument for the next shot — is difficult to dismiss.