Arman Tsarukyan explains trying to punch fan before UFC 300 fight, Dana White comments

Don’t start no stuff, won’t be no stuff. That’s Arman Tsarukyan’s message after nearly getting into a fight on his way to the cage at UFC 300.

On Saturday, Tsarukyan won a split decision over Charles Oliveira at UFC 300, putting him in line for a future lightweight title shot. But his performance arguably isn’t the biggest takeaway from the fight, because during his walkout, Tsarukyan had a brief altercation where he threw a punch at a fan in the stands.

While it was unclear at the time what prompted this reaction, in his post-fight scrum, Tsarukyan expounded on the incident, saying the fan accosted him and made an offensive gesture, and he retaliated.

“He showed me ‘F*** you’ and he wanted to punch me and I wanted to punch him back,” Tsarukyan said. “That’s it. So guys, no one show me ‘F*** you.’ It doesn’t matter who you are, I’m going to punch you in the face. You can show me ‘F***’ from like 200 meters, I’m not going to punch you. But when you’re close to me, it’s, like automatically, I’m from Russia. Don’t do that, please, or I’m going to go to prison in U.S.”

The history of athletes getting physical with fans in the stands is not a particularly good one in the U.S., but this one didn’t end up as a “Malice at the Palace” situation, as Tsarukyan continued to the cage after the incident and fought without issue. Even so, UFC CEO Dana White spoke on the matter at his own UFC 300 scrum after the event and acknowledged that the situation might not be entirely settled, depending on how the fan reacts.

“You might not want to hang over the things and grab people when they’re walking out,” White said. “These guys are all f****** hyped up whatever. I’m sure we’re probably going to get sued. We’ll deal with that on Monday too.”