Arman Tsarukyan Calls Third-Round TKO

Arman Tsarukyan has supplied a precise prediction for his UFC 331 fight with Mauricio Ruffy: a third-round stoppage created by elbows and accumulated damage. The lightweight contenders meet in a five-round co-main event on Sept. 19 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. Tsarukyan expects his wrestling to exhaust Ruffy before the finish becomes available.

The prediction fits Tsarukyan’s clearest advantage, but it is not an announced result or a guaranteed title route. Ruffy has built a 14-2 record with 13 knockout victories and can change the fight during any striking exchange. Tsarukyan has to reach the positions he is describing without giving the Brazilian the space to land the power that stopped Rafael Fiziev and Michael Chandler.

Ruffy Says the Ground Work Has Changed

Ruffy is not pretending that Tsarukyan will fight like another striker. He says his camp has centered on takedown defense, returning to his feet and remaining calm when an opponent connects wrestling attempts. Those priorities follow the only UFC loss of his career, a submission defeat to Benoit Saint Denis. The recent knockouts rebuilt his momentum, but Tsarukyan offers the strongest direct test of whether the grappling response has improved.

Improvement does not require Ruffy to out-wrestle Tsarukyan over five rounds. His more realistic task is to make each entry expensive, deny prolonged control and create enough open space to strike. A clean escape matters only if he exits in position to defend the next attempt. Standing up recklessly can return him to the mat while consuming the energy Tsarukyan wants to drain.

Tsarukyan’s third-round call is built around that energy equation. Early wrestling can slow Ruffy’s feet and reduce the speed of his counters. Elbows from top position or along the fence can then create the damage Tsarukyan described. The plan sounds logical; completing it against a dangerous finisher remains the difficult part.

Five Rounds Change the Risk

The co-main event is scheduled for 25 minutes, giving both fighters more time to recover from a lost round and more time to make one mistake decisive. Tsarukyan can invest in control without needing an immediate finish. Ruffy can lose minutes and still remain dangerous if he preserves his explosiveness. Neither man should confuse a strong opening with ownership of the entire fight.

The booking also carries major ranking value without a formal promise from the UFC. Tsarukyan has long been positioned near the top of the lightweight division, while Ruffy’s recent stoppages pushed him rapidly into this level. A convincing win will produce a strong title argument. It does not automatically settle the promotion’s schedule or the claims of other contenders.

Tsarukyan enters with the more established all-around résumé. Ruffy enters with the kind of power that can erase that advantage before it appears on a scorecard. That contrast explains why both men can speak confidently without either prediction being unreasonable. One wants the fight to become a sequence of exhausting decisions; the other needs only one exchange to remain clean.

Ruffy’s public response has been measured. He acknowledges that he is still learning and says the work since the Saint Denis loss has addressed the weakness Tsarukyan plans to attack. The fight will show whether those changes hold under elite pressure. Training improvements are meaningful, but they become evidence only when an opponent is actively trying to break them.

• Tsarukyan predicts that wrestling pressure will lead to a third-round stoppage by strikes.
• Ruffy says he has focused on takedown defense and ground escapes since his UFC submission loss.

Tsarukyan has described the fight he wants, down to the round and the method. Ruffy understands why that route is plausible and has spent his camp trying to close it. The prediction adds focus to UFC 331, but the useful question is not whether Tsarukyan sounds certain. It is whether he can impose enough wrestling to make one of the division’s most dangerous punchers fight tired.

Sources: Bloody Elbow; BJPenn; UFC.com