The current #1 ranked UFC Lightweight Arman Tsarukyan announced on Instagram that he will be the backup fighter for the vacant UFC Lightweight Championship bout at UFC 317 on June 28th in Las Vegas, Nevada. A fan asked him what was next for him, and Tsarukyan stated, “I’m the backup for UFC 317.”
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The Lightweight title fight is scheduled to feature former UFC Featherweight Champion Ilia Topuria, who recently vacated his title to move up and secure a second world title. Topuria secured Featherweight gold after becoming the first fighter to defeat then-champion Alexander Volkanovski at Featherweight and successfully defended the title one time after that, where he would become the first fighter to knockout former Featherweight Champion and current BMF Champion Max Holloway.
Topuria will face the #2 ranked Lightweight and former UFC Lightweight Champion, Charles Oliveira. In Oliveira’s last fight, he had a rematch with Michael Chandler in a five-round co-headliner at UFC 309 in November. He would dominate most of the fight, where he would secure a unanimous decision victory and maintain his spot in the top 2 of the Lightweight division.
In Arman Tsarukyan’s last fight, he defeated Oliveira at UFC 300 in a close split-decision victory. Since then, he was scheduled to have a rematch with then-UFC Lightweight Champion Islam Makhachev at UFC 311 in January. However, Makhachev instead fought Renato Moicano and won via first-round submission. This was due to a last-minute injury-related pullout from Tsarukyan and has taken away the possibility of Makhachev-Tsarukyan for the foreseeable future as Makhachev vacated his title to move up to the Welterweight division to fight the newly crowned Welterweight Champion Jack Della Maddalena, who defeated Belal Muhammad to secure the gold.
The possibilities are still amazing if either Topuria or Oliveira have to pull out. Will Tsarukyan be the one to officially welcome Topuria into the Lightweight division? Or will a five-round rematch between Tsarykyan and Oliveira have the opportunity to pull off a fight-of-the-year contender?
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