Arman Tsrukyan is one step away from fighting for a UFC title. The Armenian made a statement by knocking out then #4 ranked Beneil Dariush (who had been on an eight-fight win streak coming into their bout last year) in the first round.

And with the top echelon UFC’s uber-competitive lightweight division sorely lacking young talent (because the older fighters keep defeating the next generation of fighters as Dustin Poirier did to Benoit Saint-Denis at UFC 299 last week), the UFC put the 27-year-old straight into a title eliminator. The 27-year-old will face former champion Charles Oliveira at UFC 300 to decide the next lightweight title contender. However, Tsarukyan thinks champion Islam Makhachev may not want to fight him despite having defeated him in their first clash five years ago.

Tsarukyan thinks Islam Makhachev may dodge him

In an interview with ‘Morning Kombat’s Brian Campbell, Arman Tsarukyan was asked what he made of Islam Makhachev’s manager offering Dustin Poirier a title shot in June after ‘Diamond’s UFC 299 victory. To which Tsarukyan made a surprising claim.

The Armenia native felt that since he was more of a threat to Islam Makhachev than Dustin Poirier, the champion was looking to duck him and fight ‘Diamond’ as there was also more money to be made in that fight with less risk.

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“I feel like Islam wants to avoid us. He feels like I’m going to win. For him it’s better to fight Poirier than me because I’m more dangerous for him. Maybe he can make more money with Dustin. Probably because of that he’s interested,” he said.

However, he clarified that he was not dwelling on it and was instead focused on his upcoming UFC 300 bout against Oliveira, which is the most important fight of his career so far. “Anyway for me, doesn’t matter. So I just focus on Charles Oliveira but after that fight, we’re gonna talk,” Tsarukyan added.

Tsarukyan not too concerned about Oliveira

Although facing Charles Oliveira, one of the greatest grapplers in lightweight history, Arman Tsarukyan was not concerned about the challenge ‘Do Bronx’ posed. The Armenian felt that while the Brazilian was adept at taking his opponents’ back and submitting them, that was nothing that he couldn’t deal with. “Charles is good at one thing: taking his opponent’s back and choking him out from that position. But overall, he’s nothing special.”

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While he was complimentary about the former champion’s ability to choke out his opponents and do good work in the mount, he was preparing for all these preparing for being caught in bad positions by Oliveira. “This morning, we worked on these types of situations – what I should do if I get caught in that position. We’re working on it, but we shouldn’t let this happen in the fight,” he added. What do you think about Tsarukyan’s comments about Makhachev wanting to duck him?

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