Arman Tsarukyan’s manager spoke about the fight against Islam Makhachev

Sayat Abdrakhmanov, manager of a Russian UFC fighter Arman Tsarukyan in a conversation with a correspondent, named the strengths of the eighth ranked lightweight in a potential fight against the organization’s champion Islam Makhacheva .

Tsarukyan and Makhachev had their first fight on April 20, 2019 at UFC St. Petersburg, where the Dagestan fighter won by decision. After that, each of the athletes won eight fights, but Tsarukyan lost to Mateusz Gamrot while Makhachev became UFC champion and made two defenses. On December 2 in Texas, Tsarukyan eliminated Beneil Dariush, who could become Makhachev’s opponent at one of the tournaments in 2022.

– When is Armand ready to fight next?

“Even if you haven’t taken any damage in a fight, injuries still accumulate during the preparation process. Now we will have to deal with this, and then it will become clear when the battle can take place.

— Islam Makhachev wants to fight before Ramadan (until March 10), Arman wants to fight with Islam Makhachev. Will Arman be ready to fight before March 10?

— The UFC has already scheduled title fights in January, February and March. It’s not yet clear if they will add a second fight to one of the title cards.

“At the same time, I heard that Islam can come to the tournament where Colby Covington will fight with Leon Edwards for the UFC champion belt in the category up to 77 kg and will go to the Octagon for challenge one of them on December 9. Have you heard about this?

— The UFC now has enough contenders in the welterweight division. This includes Belal Muhammad, who is enjoying a long winning streak. Shavkat Rakhmonov, in the event of a clear victory over Thompson, is an obvious contender. As for Islam, his last two fights were against a fighter not in the lightweight category. So the lightweight contenders deserved to fight Islam.

— And what do you think the UFC will do now: offer Armand a fight with one of the trios Gaethje, Oliveira, Poirier?

— If before this, Dana White had unequivocally stated that Oliveira was next in line for a title fight, now he has food for thought. Armand is ready to fight for the title. If Oliveira believes he is next, then we can face him and find out who the real title contender is. Poirier and Gaethje – they are unlikely to agree to fight with Armand.

– Would he be the favorite?

“I don’t know how they’re going to calculate it, I know he can find the key to each of these opponents.”

– What does he want?

“Arman is happy now, he is full of confidence, ready to face any challenge. I am sure that in the next two months there is no point in fighting, it would be a mistake.

— How can he defeat Islam Makhachev?

— I think Arman, of all the contenders who fought Islam before, has the best wrestling, transfer protection and grappling skills. And at the same time, in a standing position, it can cause problems for Islam. We’ve already seen that Islam has had recovery issues, like in the first fight against Volkanovski. Islam is a very strong fighter, but it can happen that he has problems after the weigh-in or something like that, like in the fight with Arman. If Armand simply feels better on fight day, that will be his advantage. And Armand is gradually reaching his peak, so we will definitely see a better version of him than in the first fight.

— Do you agree that it would be more profitable for Makhachev’s managers to fight Poirier or Gaethje? Two big names in the United States.

– Poirier, I think, disappears for good, since he did after Gaethje’s defeat. And with Gaethje, yes, of course it would be an interesting fight.

—And would that be worse opposition to Islam than Tsarukyan?

“Judging by Gaethje’s fights against Oliveira and Khabib, yes, it’s worse,” Abdrakhmanov told .

Live broadcasts of mixed martial arts tournaments can be seen on and Match! Fighter”, as well as on the sites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru.