Fighter vs. Writer: UFC 331 picks and predictions plus does Mauricio Ruffy Have a Better Chance at a Title Shot Over Arman Tsarukyan?

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Damon Martin (0:14)

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Damon Martin (1:14)

I am Damon Martin. He is UFC legend Matt Brown. And Matt, we are finally arrived at UFC 331 Fight Week. Did I get the number right? I can't remember what numbers these are.

Matt Brown (1:24)

I thought it was 332

Damon Martin (1:26)

I have no idea.

Matt Brown (1:27)

What is it?

Damon Martin (1:29)

It's in Los Angeles. I know that.

Matt Brown (1:33)

Yeah, we've done this a good 330 times now. Sometimes we lose track.

Damon Martin (1:36)

Yeah, I mean, I'll always lose track of these stupid numbers. It is 331 I was correct. Yes. So UFC 331 this weekend, Joshua Vann taking on Alexandre Pantoja in the main event. Of course, Arman Tsarukyan taking on Mauricio Ruffy in the co-main event, potential title, The Eliminator there. And yeah, so lots to talk about with that.

Yeah. So how's your weekend?

Matt Brown (1:59)

That's great, man. Just got back from a seminar. Yeah, it's interesting that you said that potential title eliminator, because Arman Tsarukyan has been in title eliminator the last, what, 10 fights now, right?

Damon Martin (2:14)

I mean, I have to say potential because there's no guarantees. I mean, I don't care what Dana says, and Dana, to his credit, even though I don't agree with him, he's like, you know, nothing, you know, we'll see. We'll see. We'll see what happens. That's kind of like his standard answer. Now, when you ask him about that, like he learned his lesson because he used to always say, yeah, you win, you get a title shot and then, you know, whatever would happen, he wouldn't get a title shot. People get pissed off. So I think he learned his lesson in that regard. But yeah, I mean, who knows? I mean, like I said, we got, you know, I know we're waiting to see what's going to happen, you know, in terms of like, you know, I mean, we got, I don't know, you know, Ilya's coming back.

Justin's not going to fight till next year, which we know we're almost to the end of the year. It's September, so it's like we have that much time left, but who knows?

Matt Brown (2:56)

Yeah, that's, yeah, that's a crazy division right now, right? And I don't think a lot of people expect to just engage you to be the champion right now. So, you know, it's hard to say what's going to happen. You know, now they're talking about the Ilya rematch, which we, you know, we talked about that last week. And, you know, of course, Arman is the one who deserves it. But then you got Patti yet. What? Not Patti. Who am I thinking of?

You tell me.

Damon Martin (3:24)

I'm not sure. Patti was definitely one of them. I know he's definitely in the running.

Matt Brown (3:28)

Yeah. Well, yeah. Okay. You got Patti and whatever. You know, it's a, it's a tough spot to be in right now. You know?

Damon Martin (3:36)

If you're like, if you're Arman and you're clearly the number one contender, right? Like we all know he is. He's the number one contender. He should have been fighting for the title before. And I should have fought when Patti fought Justin back in January. That should have been Arman, but it was.

SPEAKER_3 (3:49)

Right.

Damon Martin (3:51)

But Arman has openly said like, I need to win this fight and I need to do it impressively because if I lose, I'll probably never get a title shot. He's accepting the fact that he's still kind of weirdly in the dog house for that whole debacle couple of years back in January, 2025 when he dropped out of the fight with Islam on short notice, which I've said a million times, I think is dumb. I mean, you don't give him an immediate read. You don't give him an immediate fight after you pulled out, but you don't need to punish him for freaking like three years.