Outside Source
Tsarukyan was scheduled to challenge Makhachev for the lightweight title at UFC 311 earlier this year. However, Tsarukyan pulled out a day before the fight due to an injury and was replaced by “Moicano,” who suffered a submission loss against Makhachev.
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Makhachev subsequently vacated his belt and moved up to welterweight, where he dethroned Jack Della Maddalena to win the title last month. Meanwhile, Tsarukyan was sidelined from the lightweight title picture as punishment for withdrawing from the fight against Makhachev. Ilia Topuria went on to win the vacant title by knocking out Charles Oliveira. While Tsarukyan kept rallying for a title shot against Topuria, the champion expressed interest in defending his belt against Paddy Pimblett. Tsarukyan believed a title shot would be undeniable after his stoppage win over Dan Hooker at UFC Qatar last month.
However, things drastically changed after Topuria announced a short hiatus from the sport due to personal reasons. Pimblett (23-3) will now fight Justin Gaethje for the interim lightweight title at UFC 324 on Jan. 24 in Las Vegas. Like most fans and pundits, Carneiro is unhappy with the interim lightweight title booking. “Moicano” doesn’t consider Pimblett remotely deserving of a title shot. Carneiro also partly blames Tsarukyan for the fiasco in the lightweight division. For Carneiro, the winner of the interim title fight between Pimblett and Gaethje (26-5) will just be champion on paper.
An Unfair World
“I don’t feel that is fair,” Carneiro told Standmeup. “But we live in an unfair world. Giving a title shot to Paddy Pimblett is unbelieveable. Easy f—-ing money. Who did he beat in the division?… When I fought Makhachev, Arman was supposed to fight for the title and he f—ed up the division. That’s the truth. If Arman fought that night, the division would keep going, but now we have Topuria going through a divorce, he doesn’t want to fight. They have Justin Gaethje vs. Paddy Pimblett — for me, this is going to be a paper champ. That’s not an undisputed champ. It doesn’t make any sense to do an interim belt because Topuria would be the champ anyways.”
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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