Dana White wasn’t taking any risks with Arman Tsarukyan.
On Friday, the UFC held its first press conference for next month’s UFC 331 card, which takes place in Los Angeles and is headlined by a flyweight title rematch between Joshua Van and Alexandre Pantoja. The co-main event for the card is a lightweight title eliminator bout between Tsarukyan and Maurio Ruffy, and when it came time for Tsarukyan and Ruffy to face off after the press conference, Dana White was not about to let Tsarukyan do anything crazy.
Tsarukyan has become notorious in recent years for his tomfoolery outside of the cage, infamously headbutting Dan Hooker at their final faceoff before their fight at UFC Qatar last year. So, when the two came together for the first time and Ruffy held a fist out, White immediately intervened when Tsarukyan began to walk forward and had the two pulled apart to prevent any mishaps.
The main event faceoff was perhaps even more intense. Van and Pantoja argued throughout much of the press conference beforehand, with Pantoja even attempting to confront Van, so when the two finally came face-to-face, things got quite chippy.
UFC 331 takes place on Sep. 19 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.