Justin
Gaethje has weighed in on Arman
Tsarukyan pulling out of his lone championship opportunity in
the
Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Tsarukyan was scheduled to challenge Islam
Makhachev for the UFC lightweight title at
UFC 311 in January 2025. He pulled out the night before
weigh-ins due to an alleged back injury and has since been out of
the title picture. Gaethje believes Tsarukyan wasn’t on course to
make championship weight and used the injury as an excuse.
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Gaethje speculates weight-cutting issues led Tsarukyan to
withdraw from his Islam Makhachev title fight
Gaethje refuses to believe Tsarukyan was forced out of the fight
due to a back injury. He argues that the UFC wouldn’t have treated
Tsarukyan as they did if the injury concern was real. Gaethje
believes Tsarukyan may have had a difficult weight cut wherein his
body came close to shutting down.
“The truth is, he wasn’t gonna make weight, so he dropped out,”
Gaethje told Demetrious
Johnson. “If it was his back and it was a medical report on
paper with the UFC, then he wouldn’t be suffering like this. I’m
just speculating, I don’t know sh*t. Maybe his body was shutting
down and he just couldn’t make weight; it happens. Maybe he was
like, ‘My body is shutting down and I’m not gonna make weight. But
if you were to pay me more money, then I will push through this and
I will make weight.’ And if someone ever did that, then I could see
them never getting a championship fight.”
Dana
White previously said that the UFC doctors had allowed
Tsarukyan to go ahead with the fight. However, Tsarukyan argues
that the doctor couldn’t do an MRI with her eyes to know the extent
of his injury. The top-ranked 155-pounder later told Daniel
Cormier that an MRI subsequently revealed a major injury in his
back, which will need surgery at some point.
Tsarukyan (23-3) is now scheduled to take on Mauricio
Ruffy (14-2) at UFC
331 on Sept. 19 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.