Arman Tsarukyan isn’t exactly endearing himself with his bosses at the UFC, and his recent brawl at RAF 6 didn’t help matters much.
Despite a five-fight win streak and sitting at the top of the UFC’s lightweight rankings, the 29-year-old contender still hasn’t received another title shot after a fight week injury knocked him out of a scheduled bout against Islam Makhachev in 2025. To make matters worse, Tsarukyan headbutted Dan Hooker and shattered his nose ahead of their fight at UFC Qatar, which definitely rubbed UFC CEO Dana White the wrong way.
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This past weekend at RAF 6, Tsarukyan finished off his match against Georgio Poullas by tackling him to the ground and throwing punches, which ignited a huge brawl on stage before security could get the situation contained.
“I don’t love it,” White said about Tsarukyan’s actions at the UFC 326 post-fight press conference. “But that night, that was somebody else’s problem, not mine. That’s really all I’ve got to say about that. The division’s heating up and lots of fun fights to make. We’ll get Arman figured out.”
While the melee at RAF happened on somebody else’s watch, Tsarukyan’s actions seemingly only added to a growing list of grievances the UFC has against him right now.
White didn’t detail all of the issues he has with Tsarukyan but it appears there’s a lot that needs to be figured out before he’ll be back in the promotion’s good graces.
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“I’m not thrilled with Arman right now,” White said. “And there’s a lot of different reasons. It’s not just the stuff that you see publicly.”
Despite Tsarukyan igniting a brawl by punching his opponent after the match, White said that he’s not going to stop allowing fighters from competing in RAF moving forward.
Instead, White believes that whole ordeal solely fell on Tsarukyan’s shoulders and he’s not making it any easier for the UFC to put trust in him again when it comes to a future title fight.
“Listen, there’s plenty of guys that wrestle that have been respectful with other guys that they wrestled,” White said. “I understand there was some back and forth with those guys but where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Arman’s been smoking a lot lately.”
