“We need to go out and fight him, make this fight dirty,” Tsarukyan told MiddleEasy. “You have to come forward, stop his takedowns and box him, keep pressing all the time and don’t let him come forward. You can’t have him press you at the net. He translates well near the net, but he doesn’t do as well in the center of the cage.”
“If we look at his last fight, he blew a tekdown attempt, couldn’t translate Volkanovski because he was trying to do it in the center of the cage. If it was near the net, he would have been able to move him.”
In his next fight, Arman Tsarukyan, ranked eighth in the UFC lightweight rankings, will face the division’s No. 4 Benil Dariush, and the Russian believes an early victory over the American will guarantee him a title shot.
“Fans will see the best performance of Arman Tsarukyan. The best knockout. Definitely, it’s going to be an early finish. If I want to fight for the title, I have to finish him. If I barely beat him, people will say, ‘Oliveira knocked him out and you barely won – what are you even talking about?’ So I have to perform really well and knock him out”
As a reminder, the lightweight fight between Arman Tsarukyan and Benil Dariush will be the main event of UFC on ESPN 52, which will take place on December 2 in Austin, Texas, USA.