UFC Star Arman Tsarukyan Claps Back at Dana White’s Injury Remarks!
Arman Tsarukyan didn’t take kindly to Dana White’s implication that he could have fought at UFC 311.
Hours before he was scheduled to step on the scale for his first UFC title opportunity, Tsarukyan bowed out of his lightweight headliner with Islam Makhachev citing a back injury. As a result, Renato Moicano was pulled from his main card slot against Beneil Dariush and thrust into the main event spotlight.
Following the event, White declared in no uncertain terms that Tsarukyan’s title fight against Makhachev would not be rebooked. Instead, the Armenian will have to go “back to the drawing” board and climb his way back up the contender’s ladder.
“He’s going back to the drawing board,” White said at the post-fight press conference. “You miss opportunities sometimes, and he did. We’ll see how this plays out for him next year… He’s not getting the title shot, that means he’s going to have to fight his way back to the title.”
While Tsarukyan seemed to agree with his boss, suggesting a rematch with Charles Oliveira as his next fight. But ‘Ahalkalakets’ also addressed White’s insinuation that he could have competed in Los Angeles.
“Maybe a doctor told him I could fight, I don’t know… I wanted to be in this fight more than anyone,” Tsarukyan said on The Ariel Helwani Show. “Even if I lost but looked good… I could have made good money, but I couldn’t walk.”
Arman Tsarukyan details devastating back injury
In that same interview with Helwani, Tsarukyan offered some insight into the injury that took him out of UFC 311.
“Wednesday after training, I went to sleep, and I started to feel my lower back, and I couldn’t sleep all night and thought something happened,” Tsarukyan said. “[I] took some painkiller, but it didn’t help. The next day, I thought it’s going to be good, and after [the] press conference, I’m going to start my weight cut. And when I started my weight cut, I was doing [the] bike, and like, that moment, my back was stuck, and I couldn’t move.”
Tsarukyan is 8-1 under the UFC banner and is currently sitting on a four-fight win streak with his most notable victories coming against Beneil Dariush and ‘Do Bronx.’
