This past week, Arman Tsarukyan went a little crazy at RAF 6, Ilia Topuria returned to the limelight, and the UFC’s parent company looks set to acquire another huge media entity. So, let’s talk about it all.
Arman Tsarukyan and Ilia Topuria
Has your stance changed on Ilia “never gonna fight” Arman? Ilia called him out multiple times on Adin’s stream and Arman said Hunter promised him a tittle shot in October, which would line up while if Ilia KOs Gaethje in 1 this summer as expected.
It has not.
First, just to clarify, Topuria did
not call out Tsarukyan on Adin Ross’s livestream (I watched almost the entire thing, sadly). He just repeatedly said he would whoop Arman if they fought, and trash-talked him. But at no point was Topuria like, “I want to fight Arman. Feed me Arman.” The man called to fight Conor McGregor, for crying out loud! He’s not fighting Arman. I’ll believe different when they’re locked in the cage together.
The way I view Topuria, and the way I think is best to understand his career, is through the lens of McGregor. McGregor is the second most important fighter in MMA history (behind Royce Gracie), not just because he took the sport to a new level of global awareness, but because he also fundamentally changed the culture of it.
Before McGregor, MMA very rarely had two-division champions, and the UFC basically never did. Randy Couture did it because heavyweight and light heavyweight were thin and bad, and B.J. Penn did it because they closed down the lightweight division. Multiple titles was simply not something people did. Instead, champions were expected to defend their belts over and over until someone took over as king of the hill.
McGregor changed all of that. Now, nobody ever wants to defend their title. The moment a fighter wins a UFC belt, the talk turns to fighting for a second one, and the reasoning is obvious: less risk, more reward. That’s the definition of prize fighting, and every champion wants a piece. McGregor opened Pandora’s box, and we’ve been dealing with it ever since.
Topuria is one of the greatest talents I’ve ever seen in MMA. If he were in a previous era, he’s be deep into a featherweight title reign already, and we’d be wondering about how many defenses he might rack up, if he could pass Jose Aldo and become the GOAT. But we’re not in that era. Instead, Topuria — very reasonably — wants to get paid and get out. And the shortest path to that is not fighting Diego Lopes and Movsar Evloev, it’s following McGregor.
Topuria won the featherweight title and, even ahead of that, downplayed the idea of fighting Max Holloway. Ultimately, he did it because it’s a fight everyone wanted, but that was it. One defense, and he’s gone to lightweight to win a second title. He did that, and if he had his druthers, he’d be off again, up to welterweight to fight Islam Makhachev. And after that, boxing, where he can cash out for a few real paydays, hopefully.
But nowhere in that roadmap is there a fight against an incredibly difficult opponent in the prime of his career, with minimal upside, because why should he? If the UFC doesn’t make him, why should Topuria accept any risk without commensurate reward? It’s the same calculus Jon Jones made at the end of his career when he ducked Tom Aspinall, and it’s hard to argue with them. If I could avoid doing hard work in favor of easier work, I certainly would. After all, that’s why I talk about MMA instead of work construction.
So, the only real question for this is, will the UFC make Topuria fight Tsarukyan? And I think the answer is no.
While I don’t ascribe to the idea that Tsarukyan is hurting his title chances by headbutting Dan Hooker and assaulting a wrestling influencer, it’s hard to argue that those are good choices by him, because they give the promotion cover to pass him over if they feel like. Thus far, they’ve felt like, and I see no reason why that would change.
If the UFC wanted Tsarukyan in a title fight, they’d have let him beat up Justin Gaethje or Paddy Pimblett for an interim belt. But that’s not what we got. I don’t think the UFC views Tsarukyan as harshly as they do Movsar Evloev, but this is still not someone the promotion is focused on giving opportunities to, and fighting Topuria is the biggest opportunity he can get.
My official prediction is that Topuria beats Gaethje and then moves up to welterweight to fight Islam Makhachev. And after that, who knows?
Paramount and Warner
With Paramount acquiring WB and the UFC jumping from 79 million global viewers to over 200 million global viewers once they merge streaming platforms (assuming some subscription losses due to price increase), will this impact the UFC fight card quality at all or will the UFC cruise towards mediocrity, assuming that more people will just watch what they’re given?
I wanted to address the impending Paramount buyout of Warner because it’s huge news, but I also want to give a major caveat: this is not a topic I am highly versed in. So, take everything that follows with several grains of salt (sea salt, not kosher).
From a big picture standpoint, I am always against the consolidation of power because it very rarely ends up benefiting the end users. I strongly suspect that Paramount buying Warner Bros., a LOT of people are going to lose jobs, and there we be much less competition and much fewer options in the marketplace, resulting in a worse experience for us, the media consumers. But that is most likely to affect us all holistically, and not specifically impact how the UFC operates or how we consume MMA.
First, while the merger will, ostensibly, add a pile of new potential viewers to the UFC’s platform, it probably won’t actually make a huge difference in viewership numbers. Combat sports are niche sports, and not meant for everyone. Maybe some new subscribers might tune in, but most have probably already encountered MMA before this, so it’s not like there are 100 million people who have never heard of the sport and are about to be introduced to it for the first time.
And secondly, viewership is incidental to the UFC right now. Sure, in seven years the promotion will be in the market for a new broadcast rights deal, and viewership numbers can always help in those negotiations, but at the rate things are going, that’s probably incidental. Live sports command massive price tags, and there are only a few of those leagues out there. The UFC is one, so its next deal will almost certainly be for a ludicrous sum of money.
So, in summation, I doubt this merger will even be felt by MMA fans. Except for the price bump to our subscriptions at the end of this year. But that was always coming anyway. Now, at least, maybe we get HBO, too.
Hypothetical Fight Card Corner
Once upon a time the UFC held an all heavyweight PPV main card. Good card with 5 main card finishes.
What current weight class could command its own PPV main card? And what would those fights be?
Truth be told, you could do it with any of the men’s weight classes between 135 pounds and 185 pounds. Personally, I think you could do it with 125 pounds, too, but the UFC would never do that for a PPV. But, if I were in charge and tasked with booking such an event, I’d go to the welterweight division.
While I think the lightweight division is the best in the sport (and has been forever, basically), welterweight is the hottest division right now after how 2025 ended. There is a new champion, and several guys are jockeying for position for a title fight, so let’s clear things up.
In the main event, Islam Makhachev defends his welterweight title against Ian Machado Garry. If this were a few months ago, I’d have said Islam vs. Shavkat Rakhmonov, but with Shavkat absorbing the spirit of Dominick Cruz, I think IMG is next most deserving, having barely lost to Shavkat and beaten more other top contenders.
The co-main event and de facto backup fight would be Michael Morales vs. Carlos Prates. I’m aware that Prates is fighting Jack Della Maddalena in Perth, but I like this matchup better, especially as it solves our “who has next” problem.
The feature bout can be Kamaru Usman vs. Belal Muhammad. That’s a fight that’s been building for a while, and if Usman wants a title shot, he needs at least one more win.
I like the Joaquin Buckley vs. Sean Brady fight, so that can get plucked from the April APEX card and brought here. And then to open the main card, JDM takes on Gabriel Bonfim.
See how easy that was? And that left several big-name welterweights on the table. 170 is scorching hot right now. Can’t wait to see how this all shakes out over the year.
Thanks for reading, and thank you to everyone who sent in questions. Do you have any burning questions about things at least somewhat related to combat sports? Then you’re in luck, because you can send them to me. Every Sunday (sometimes I forget and it happens on Monday), I’ll put out a call for questions on The Feed. Doesn’t matter if they’re topical or insane; just drop your questions in there and let’s have fun.
