UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev recently revealed that his next title defence could be delayed due to a hand injury, and so now his expected opponent Arman Tsarukyan has floated the idea of an interim title fight if he doesn’t return to action soon.
Makachev stated late last month that he injured his hand during his submission victory over Dustin Poirier at UFC 302 on June 1st, and it was still unclear at that stage whether it will heal up or require surgery.
“We’ll take time, everything is healing little by little,” Makhachev said at the time. “But my hand continued to bother me… An MRI recently confirmed that I have a partial ligament tear, let’s see if I can recover – if not, I might even have to have surgery.”
That’s left the No.1 ranked Tsarukyan in limbo while he waits to see what happens next, but it seems he’s open to the idea of fighting for the interim belt in the mean time.
“Well, I am the #1 contender, [Islam] says that I only talk, [but] how can a person talk and be in the top 1?” Tsarukyan told Artem Tarasov MMA.
“It turns out that I’m not just walking, I’m also doing and proving it with my actions.
“I became number one and proved to the whole world that I am a contender for the title… My next fight will be only for the belt.”
“So, it could be an interim title if [Islam] doesn’t have time to recover his hand. If he recovers his hand, it will be even better for me.”
One man whose already expressed his willingness to fight Tsarukyan for the interim belt is Dustin Poirier, who told MMAjunkie, “yeah, for sure [that] interests me.”
“I could fight at the end of the year,” Poirier had said about his availability.
“I wonder what they’re gonna do with that [title], is Arman gonna continue to wait for Islam? I don’t know when Islam’s gonna be back but I saw a thing that said he might have to have surgery, so we’ll see man.”
