Arman
Tsarukyan admits he was slightly taken aback by the massive fan
base for his upcoming opponent, Charles
Oliveira.
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Tsarukyan is ready for the biggest matchup of his career against
the former champ at UFC
300 on Saturday in what is essentially a lightweight title
eliminator. Leading up to the matchup, the Armenian-Russian’s
comments sections on social media have been flooded with the iconic
phrase coined by Oliveira, “The champ has a name.”
“I didn’t know that [he has a lot of fans]… And he has a lot of
fans so like everybody text me on the comments, ‘The champion has
name: Charles
Oliveira.’ And send a lot of messages with the Brazilian flag
but it’s funny … ,” Tsarukyan told ESPN
Oliveira fans took it to a different level during a UFC 300 Q&A
in Miami last month by issuing death threats to Tsarukyan’s face
while booing him. “Ahalkalakets” admits being surprised by the
incident but expects a different atmosphere at the T-Mobile Arena
in Las Vegas.
“I was surprised because I didn’t think like a lot of people gonna
boo me, you know,’ he said. “Maybe because [Alex] Pereira was
there, his fans and Oliveira’s fans it’s almost same guys, that’s
why. And yeah it [the presser] was in LA, like a lot of Armenian,
Russian people can come [to Vegas] and I think it’s gonna be
completely different.”
Tsarukyan also recently implied that “do Bronx” is only good at one
thing: taking people’s backs and choking them. However, the surging
lightweight has now slightly changed course after studying
Oliveira’s extensive career in detail.
“I felt that he’s not that strong. I think now because I didn’t
watch his old fights and I thought it’s gonna be more easier to
fight with him. But now when I started to watch his old fights and
like to know all details, techniques, he’s so technical,” said
Tsarukyan. “When you know someone, you just watch like his short
videos or like one fight, two fights. But when you watch, ‘Oh, I’m
gonna fight with this guy,’ you see all his skills. You’re just
watching one fight like 20 times because you got to know what he’s
doing there and after that you can get something new, new, new, new
and at the end of that I understood like this guy is dangerous
everywhere. He knocks out people, he can choke people but I’m ready
for everything.”