Arman Tsarukyan says he has a good reason for missing out on his first-ever UFC title shot.
The Armenian lightweight was forced out of his lightweight title bout with Islam Makhachev that was scheduled to headline last weekend’s UFC 311 in Inglewood, California at the eleventh hour after complaining of a back injury — with Renato Moicano replacing him in the main event, with the Brazilian eventually being defeated by first round submission.
And speaking on Monday, Tsarukyan elaborated on the decision to withdraw from the fight, saying that the extent of his back injury made it impossible to compete.
“I didn’t have anything with my lower back,” Tsarukyan said of his pre-fight preparations in the build-up to the fight to Ariel Helwani, as noted by MMA Fighting.
“I had from my neck to my back, but it’s a completely different thing. Of course, every camp we have something, like, I hurt my elbow, I hurt my knee,’ but it was not that bad that you couldn’t continue your training camp. Every fighter has a small injury.
“Everything was good. Wednesday, after training, I went to sleep and I start to feel my lower back, and I couldn’t sleep all night, and I thought something happened,” he added. “I took some painkillers, and they didn’t help. The next day, I thought it’s going to be good and after press conference I’m going to start my weight cut. When I started my weight cut, I was doing bike, and then that moment my back stuck, and I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move, I just laid down in the hot tub, it was crazy pain.
“I couldn’t do cardio. And then UFC doctors came and started to help me, do some PT, and they said, ‘You’re going to be alright in the morning. If you’re going to feel the same, you can’t continue cutting your weight.’ I was, like, six pounds left when I went to sleep, and the pain was the same. Five a.m. I just told my manager it’s the same pain, I couldn’t move, my lower back stuck and I cannot continue.
“I wanted to be on this fight more than everybody. Even if I lose, but lose good, I could make good money, but I couldn’t walk that night.”
