Arman Tsarukyan didn’t lose his place in the title picture overnight. And now, for the first time, he’s openly admitting that he knows exactly where things went wrong. At 29, Tsarukyan sits in a strange space. He’s the No. 1-ranked lightweight, riding elite performances, yet watching an interim title fight go ahead without him at UFC 324.

Justin Gaethje and Paddy Pimblett get the spotlight while Tsarukyan gets the waiting room. So how does a fighter with his résumé end up here? Is it really just politics, or did he hand the UFC too many reasons to hesitate?

That’s the tension hovering over his recent conversation with Ariel Helwani, a clip of which was shared on Instagram by MMA Pros Pick, where Tsarukyan stopped deflecting and started owning the damage: “I want to be a champion as soon as possible.”

When Helwani asked him directly if he regretted any of his recent actions, Tsarukyan didn’t dodge it. “Yes,” he said. Pressed further on which moments still bother him, the answer came fast and unfiltered.

According to him, “So pull out was real deal. Head butt was so bad. I shouldn’t do that because Hooker is a man. If it were some different guy who said, ‘Oh, I get hurt, I don’t want to fight.’ So can imagine if the main event, like, won’t happen, you know? Yeah, it’s so bad. So hopefully it happened, and nothing happened. But I couldn’t control myself in that moment.”

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However, the headbutt wasn’t an isolated incident. It followed a late withdrawal from his UFC 311 title fight against Islam Makhachev, which forced the promotion to scramble. Before that, there was the incident at UFC 300 where he struck a fan during his walkout. Go back further, and there was the altercation with Bobby ‘King’ Green at a hotel in Dallas. Stack those moments together, and you don’t just get controversy. You get a pattern.

In fact, Arman Tsarukyan confirmed as much in a separate appearance during an interview with streamer Adin Ross, revealing what the UFC actually told him. According to him, officials said he was “too dangerous” to place on their first-ever Paramount card. UFC CEO Dana White also backed that up, confirming the Hooker headbutt played a major role in the promotion going another direction for UFC 324.

Perhaps that’s why the regret in his voice wasn’t about losing a fight. It was about losing momentum. Yet, that hasn’t stopped him from throwing shots at ‘The Baddy,’ who skipped over him on the road to the UFC gold!

Arman Tsarukyan claims Dana White and the UFC are avoiding matching him up with Paddy Pimblett

While he may accept why the UFC hit pause on his title push, he clearly doesn’t accept who benefited from it. After his win over Lance Palmer at RAF (Real American Freestyle) 5, Arman Tsarukyan made it clear he sees the UFC 324 interim title fight for what it is: business. And in his view, Paddy Pimblett is the product being pushed.

In an interview backstage, he said, “Everybody knows, Paddy Pimblett, they want to make him a champion because it’s his chance to be a champion. They know if they’re going to put me against him, he’s going to lose, and the star is going to be gone.”

That’s a brutal assessment. But is it wrong? Pimblett brings numbers, noise, and marketability. Tsarukyan brings risk. And in a division ruled by margins, promoters tend to protect upside.

Tsarukyan even explained why Justin Gaethje makes sense as Pimblett’s dance partner: “Gaethje is easy money for him. He’s old, he has maybe one or two fights left. So that’s why they give him an interim title because he’s not going to be a real champion, because there’s Ilia Topuria, and I never think he can beat Ilia Topuria.”

As such, his shots at Paddy Pimblett aren’t random. They’re strategic. Tsarukyan sees himself as the problem the UFC doesn’t want to solve yet  — too dangerous, too disruptive, too risky for a carefully packaged moment. So what happens next? The margin for error is gone. If Arman Tsarukyan wants the belt “as soon as possible,” as he says, the path is simple but unforgiving: win, stay composed, and force the UFC and Dana White’s hand!