You can’t get on the internet these days as an MMA fan without tripping over clips of Arman Tsarukyan power-slamming Urijah Faber into concrete or messing around with Khamzat Chimaev in training or getting kicked off planes. He’s grappling at every event, chatting on every stream, and giving interviews to everyone. The dude has even taken over Tiktok.
Tsarukyan has now competed elsewhere seven times since his last UFC win over Dan Hooker at UFC Qatar in November 2025. He’s hotter than ever, if not always for the right reasons. Yet he still has no UFC fight on the horizon. “Ahalkalakets” claims he’s the backup for the Ilia Topuria vs. Justin Gaethje title fight at UFC White House, but no one from UFC has confirmed this. Just the idea probably gives UFC CEO Dana White serious heartburn.
So when is Tsarukyan going to, I don’t know, actually fight MMA for UFC? It doesn’t seem like it will be any time soon, because UFC wants some of Tsarukyan’s side-quest magic instead.
“I saw Claudia Gadelha of UFC BJJ said they were talking about you versus Mikey Musumeci,” Ariel Helwani said during a new interview. “Is that a real thing?”
“Yeah, it’s a real thing,” Tsarukyan replied. “It’s probably going to be in August or September. So I want to do that but I still want to do one grappling before him because these are new rules, I got to see how it works. [So] May 30th, then maybe UFC BJJ, then UFC, and then WWE. That’s my goal, do a jump into the fans or some crazy things.”
“Right now my goal is UFC. I wake up thinking when I’m going to get my next fight and go to bed thinking about UFC as well. The UFC motivates me more than everything in this life right now. I just don’t want to be champion, I want to be the best UFC fighter, pound-for-pound. I’m 29, so I got seven years. For seven years, you can make a bunch of money, get a lot of belts, and then retire. I feel like 37 is a good time to go and do WWE.”
Tsarukyan also dropped the news that he might end up in a movie fighting Jackie Chan in the summer. It seems like the Armenian fighter is getting every opportunity but one to actually fight in the UFC. What is going on? Why can’t the UFC get this man back into the cage? What master plan are they following that involves having him compete everywhere else for nearly a year?
What Tsarukyan is doing on his own is clearly working, and when he finally returns it will be as a much bigger star than he was when he was just another fighter on the roster that UFC management didn’t particularly like. But this is moving at a glacial pace. UFC BJJ in September, THEN maybe UFC? Come on.