At 22 years Arman Tsarukyan went to the first UFC fight, having five weeks to prepare, and that was on the condition that it was necessary to prepare for the fight with Islam Makhachev. Since then, Tsarukyan has won six fights, lost to Makhachev (in April 2019) and Pole Mateusz Gamrot (a highly controversial decision) and moved up to eighth in the lightweight rankings. Tsarukyan’s superpower is self-confidence and discipline. Arman does not hide the fact that he grew up in a wealthy family and initially could afford to engage in MMA without being distracted by work.
In the summer of 2023, 8 fights in the UFC, as well as four bonuses for the performance of the evening, brought Arman Tsarukyan about $ 500,000, but the fighter himself says that he is interested in the belt and victories over the best rivals. On June 17, Arman will fight with Brazilian Joaquim Silva, who replaced the injured Renato Moicano. Tsarukyan is not worried about the replacement and says you just have to beat everyone and sooner or later you will receive the title.
— Before this tournament, you started posting video blogs on your own channel. And tell me, why do you need it?
– I like to vlog, and I do it for the committed, training audience so they can see how the pros prepare and not make the mistakes I made. When I started, nobody told me how best to train, what to do. And now I want to show what I eat, what kind of training I have, how the day is going in general. Starting today, I want to record vlogs of every day I’ve been in Las Vegas (i.e. the week before the fight. – “”). I have long wanted to start doing this, but not all hands have reached it.
– It costs a little money – isn’t it a pity?
– No. It’s an investment in yourself. It costs $500 to shoot a release in the United States, it’s filmed by a guy, a Russian-speaking American.
– In one of the first numbers, you prepare your own coffee at a Turkish place…
– Yes, I am now, look what I prepared for breakfast – chocolate (shows a bowl with a mixture of chocolate color). Everything is calculated here, how many and where calories, so I can afford it. The week I lose weight, I can afford 1300 calories a day.
As for the coffee, I love it and drink it often. Especially at home. They cook for me at home. It is a tradition to drink coffee after breakfast and after lunch. It’s the custom among Armenians – you come to my house, they offer you coffee right away. Then you’ve eaten, and if they want to end the meeting, the host offers coffee again. So that’s already a hint that you’re now going to drink another coffee and you have to leave. It’s the end of all parties, weddings, birthdays. Coffee.
There are a lot of sports articles about coffee, but you seem to study everything thoughtfully – in the end, did you figure out if it was harmful or not?
– Well, in principle, I do not eat junk food, I try to use organic food, but I learned coffee, and you can drink it. Especially in the interval from 3 to 5 p.m. Once or twice a day is fine. After 18, this is not desirable.
– I heard that athletes sometimes can’t fall asleep due to overwork, have you ever experienced this?
– To be honest, it happened five times in this camp. But I check my condition, I use a special ring (the development of the UFC fighter training center, which fixes the main indications of the vital activity of the athlete – approx. “”), he shows me what my recovery was like. And it generates the recovery index. And I already know my body so well that I can get up in the morning and understand by my heart rate whether I have recovered well or not. Let’s say I had a flight yesterday: we flew out on Sunday, went to the hotel on Monday night and I slept for 4-5 hours. I wake up in the morning and find that my heart is beating faster. I say, “I haven’t recovered.” I look at the application – it also shows that I am not restored. And I tell the coaches right away that we’re going to do an easy workout, because I haven’t slept well and I don’t want to burden myself. And we spent the evening training, it’s not that intense. And he might say, “Come on, what?! We have to plow!”
But today I got up absolutely vigorous, slept well, the ring showed that I was 100% restored. In general, you need to dose. And in the vlogs, by the way, I also show that on certain days I take breaks: Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday – I have tennis, a swimming pool. To be distracted and so that these are workouts that do not load the central nervous system.
– How do you find the fight between Beneil Dariush and Charles Oliveira, at the top of your weight?
“To be honest, I thought Dariush would win. I thought he was fine. But yesterday I met Ali Abdelaziz (manager of Beneil Dariush – approx. “”), I asked what happened, and he said that there was a very difficult weight race, he drove weights for eight hours and recovered very poorly. They don’t advertise it, but it’s clear he’s not himself, he didn’t feel good in the fight.
– What do you think, which of them will have as rivals?
– I think Oliveira will have Makhachev and Dariush will have me.
– Alexandre Shabliy suggested that Oliveira fought without any plan. What do you think?
– No, he had specific preparations. For example, the right hand to the head and the right foot to the side. You hide the blow with your hand and throw your leg behind. He threw it, and that’s how he won. Oliveira is a prepared person, although he didn’t start very well.
How would you fight Oliveira?
– I would translate it, to be honest, and I wouldn’t let it out from below. Let him lie in the hilt, trying to throw triangles. I would have scored it and therefore I would have won all the rounds.
– There is no feeling that he would have tried to make a reception and would have done it?
– Well, he couldn’t make a reception for Dariush in three minutes. Makhachev could not. And for few people he was able to make a reception from below, he is dangerous only if he takes his back, but on his back it is not very dangerous.
– Do you see chances for Oliveira in a rematch with Islam Makhachev?
– No. Zero chance. Clearly a fight is a fight, Oliveira has a shot, a good shot, but if you take it stylistically, Islam is Oliveira’s most uncomfortable opponent.
– You said that Volkanovski called you for training to prepare you for Islam. What if Oliveira called?
– Not really. I want to fight them all and I know I will fight them all. I am the eighth number in the ranking, and God forbid that on Sunday I was higher.
June 18 at 01:55 (Moscow time) “Match! Fighter” will show the UFC Vettori vs Cannonier tournament, where Arman Tsarukyan and Joaquim Silva will also fight. Other broadcasts of mixed martial arts tournaments can be viewed on and Match! Fighter”, as well as on the sites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru.
Source : MatchTV
I am Ashley Ortiz and I am a professional journalist working for Athletistic. My specialty is in sports journalism, particularly boxing. I have written articles for some of the most renowned publications on the subject, and my work has been featured across both print and digital media platforms.
