Arman Tsarukyan looked untouchable at UFC 331, but hours before destroying Mauricio Ruffy, he was apparently terrified for his life. The Armenian contender flattened Ruffy in the first round with two vicious elbows at Crypto.com Arena, producing what may have been the cleanest knockout of his career. Yet behind that dominant performance was a far uglier reality: Tsarukyan had barely slept after a nightmare involving a gun being pointed directly at his face.

During a recent stream with Nina Drama and Neon, Tsarukyan recounted a horrific nightmare that jolted him awake at 4:00 a.m., terrified.

“That night, I tried to fall asleep, and when I slept, I had a dream,” Tsarukyan said. “Someone is robbing me, and they put a gun in my face. And I thought, like, ‘I’m gonna die, and I have a fight tomorrow.’ I said, ‘No way. No way I’m gonna die like that.’ And the guy was super drunk. His eyes were so red, and I was so scared.

“And I said, ‘Don’t kill me. I’ll give you everything.’ And the watch. I don’t know which watch, but I gave the watch. ‘Whatever that you want, just take everything.’ And then I woke up at 4 a.m., and I couldn’t sleep anymore.”

Tsarukyan had plenty riding on the Ruffy fight. A loss could have pushed him out of the lightweight title picture just when he was trying to force his way back into it. Whether that pressure had anything to do with the nightmare is impossible to know, but Tsarukyan is hardly the first UFC star to admit that his mind went to a dark place before a major fight.

Before him, former two-division champion Jon Jones spoke about having nightmares before facing Rampage Jackson at UFC 135.

“So with Rampage Jackson, I kept having these nightmares that I would get knocked out, “Jones told Steve-O’s Wild Ride! Podcast in 2025. “No matter how the fight played out, I’d always get knocked out, and it was always within the first 30 seconds of the fight.

“Once I’d run to the center, he’d run out and swing a huge overhand right. In another dream, it was an uppercut, it was a left hook, and I couldn’t avoid this inevitable knockout that I would experience in the first round.”

Despite repeatedly dreaming about Jackson knocking him out, the fight played out very differently. Jones dominated Jackson for the majority of the bout before scoring a submission victory in the fourth round to defend his 205 lbs title.

Interestingly, both Tsarukyan and Jones won their fights after having disturbing nightmares before stepping into the cage. If nothing else, it is a strange reminder that even some of MMA’s most dangerous fighters can imagine the worst before going out and delivering when it matters.