Arman Tsarukyan subscribes to the popular Mike Tyson quote, ‘Everyone’s got a plan until they get punched in the mouth.’ Especially when it comes to UFC legend Khabib Nurmagomedov.
On January 18, Tsarukyan will put that theory to a test, though it won’t come against Nurmagomedov. Instead, it’ll be against the Hall of Famer’s protege, Islam Makhachev, who just happens to be the promotion’s reigning lightweight world champion. Tsarukyan will challenge the ‘Dagestani Destroyer’ for the 155-pound crown when the UFC heads to the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles for the first pay-per-view event of 2025, UFC 311.
Nurmagomedov is expected to be in Makhachev’s corner that night and will likely go into fight night with a well-thought-out game plan when Makhachev seeks his fourth successful defense of the lightweight strap.
Undoubtedly helping matters will be the fact that Makhachev already holds a victory over Tsarukyan under the UFC banner, besting the Armenian at UFC on ESPN+ 7 in April 2019.
Arman Tsarukyan knows how to disrupt makhachev’s game plan
Of course, Tsarukyan thinks that successfully throwing Makhachev off his game will come down to one not-so-simple task — hit the man really, really, hard.
“I think game plans can go out the window when you get hit with a hard punch,” Tsarukyan said in an interview with ESPN MMA. “If I hurt him really badly, he’ll forget about his game plan. It’s the same for me. In my last fight, Oliveira choked me, and after that moment, I forgot my game plan completely. That’s why I have to hurt him very badly in the first round. Then it won’t matter what game plan they have.”
Tsarukyan certainly has a knack for knocking his opponents out. In his nine career wins under the UFC banner, he’s scored highlight-reel KOs against Christos Giagos, Joel Alvarez, Joaquim Silva, and Beneil Dariush.
