Arman Tsarukyan Admits Being Surprised by Charles Oliveira’s Fan Following

Arman Tsarukyan admits he was slightly taken aback by the massive fan base for his upcoming opponent, Charles Oliveira.

Tsarukyan is ready for the biggest matchup of his career against the former champ at UFC 300 on Saturday in what is essentially a lightweight title eliminator. Leading up to the matchup, the Armenian-Russian’s comments sections on social media have been flooded with the iconic phrase coined by Oliveira, "The champ has a name."

“I didn’t know that [he has a lot of fans]… And he has a lot of fans so like everybody text me on the comments, ‘The champion has name: Charles Oliveira.’ And send a lot of messages with the Brazilian flag but it’s funny … ,” Tsarukyan told ESPN

Oliveira fans took it to a different level during a UFC 300 Q&A in Miami last month by issuing death threats to Tsarukyan’s face while booing him. “Ahalkalakets” admits being surprised by the incident but expects a different atmosphere at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

“I was surprised because I didn’t think like a lot of people gonna boo me, you know,’ he said. “Maybe because [Alex] Pereira was there, his fans and Oliveira’s fans it’s almost same guys, that’s why. And yeah it [the presser] was in LA, like a lot of Armenian, Russian people can come [to Vegas] and I think it’s gonna be completely different.”

Tsarukyan also recently implied that “do Bronx” is only good at one thing: taking people’s backs and choking them. However, the surging lightweight has now slightly changed course after studying Oliveira’s extensive career in detail.

“I felt that he’s not that strong. I think now because I didn’t watch his old fights and I thought it’s gonna be more easier to fight with him. But now when I started to watch his old fights and like to know all details, techniques, he’s so technical," said Tsarukyan. "When you know someone, you just watch like his short videos or like one fight, two fights. But when you watch, ‘Oh, I’m gonna fight with this guy,’ you see all his skills. You’re just watching one fight like 20 times because you got to know what he’s doing there and after that you can get something new, new, new, new and at the end of that I understood like this guy is dangerous everywhere. He knocks out people, he can choke people but I’m ready for everything.”