For the better part of two years, the case that Dana White would never forgive Arman Tsarukyan looked airtight. The rap sheet was real: Tsarukyan punched a fan during his UFC 300 walkout and ate a nine-month suspension plus a $25,000 fine, reducible to six months only if he filmed an anti-bullying PSA. He withdrew from his UFC 311 title fight against Islam Makhachev on the morning of the weigh-ins with a back injury, later revealed on an MRI as a hernia. In November 2025 he headbutted Dan Hooker at the ceremonial weigh-ins in Doha — then went out and submitted him anyway. The No. 1-ranked lightweight watched the interim title fight go to Justin Gaethje vs. Paddy Pimblett at UFC 324. He had, by any honest accounting, spent a year and a half paying for his mistakes.
“He could not be in a better position than he's in right now.”
And White's history shows he keeps receipts. The classic parallel is Jon Jones at UFC 151, when the champion turned down a Chael Sonnen fight on eight days' notice and White canceled the entire card — calling it "one of the most selfish, disgusting decisions" he had ever seen and telling Jones that while he was rich enough to say no, "there's a bunch of guys on the undercard that this is how they feed their family." Jones was back in a title fight before long. Tsarukyan's exile lasted longer.
But the "never forgive" thesis has one problem: Tsarukyan kept winning. On September 19 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, he knocked Mauricio Ruffy cold with two elbows at 4:56 of the first round — four seconds from the horn — and pocketed a Performance of the Night bonus. And White, at the post-fight press conference, sounded nothing like a man nursing a grudge: "When you f*ck up, then you come back and you do everything the right way — he couldn't have had a better comeback," he said. "He could not be in a better position than he's in right now."
White stopped short of naming the next title fight, saying only, "I don't know. We'll see... we don't know what Gaethje's thinking yet." But Tsarukyan says the UFC told him before and after UFC 331 that he is next. Gaethje, meanwhile, is sidelined for the rest of 2026 with hand injuries and hasn't decided whether to defend the undisputed belt or retire.
So the uncomfortable question for the original argument: was it ever personal, or was it just business wearing a grudge's clothes? White's praise had a transactional undertone — the comeback he praised was a comeback that sold itself. Tsarukyan didn't rewrite the narrative with an apology tour. He rewrote it with the kind of violence the UFC cannot ignore.
The "never forgive" thesis wasn't crazy. It was just written a week too early.
