Boxer Ryan Garcia recently appeared with UFC lightweight contender Arman Tsarukyan for a live broadcast, and the two athletes got into a conversation about UFC pay and what it would take to get Garcia into the octagon.
Garcia, who admitted he does not follow MMA closely, asked Tsarukyan directly: “Hey, so do you compete in the UFC or no? So, what’s up with that?” referring to his UFC schedule.
Tsarukyan explained his situation: “Yeah, sometimes. Once they give me a match, I compete.”
Garcia pressed him: “Damn. Why don’t they want to put you on?”
Tsarukyan clarified: “No, I’m number one because I cannot compete with anybody. I got to compete for the title right now.”
Garcia then raised the topic of MMA training, saying he wanted Tsarukyan to teach him some wrestling. Tsarukyan turned it around on him: “So you want to know, you wanted to compete in MMA as well, right?”
Garcia confirmed he was interested, and Tsarukyan got straight to the point: “But how much, how they can pay money?”
Garcia responded: “They got to pay me hella cash.”
Garcia then revealed he had cash on hand and offered Tsarukyan $40,000 to take a body shot challenge. Tsarukyan was not impressed.
“Not enough,” Tsarukyan said flatly.
The two went back and forth, and eventually landed on a figure of $80,000 before the challenge was dropped entirely.
Later in the broadcast, Garcia brought up the topic of UFC gloves, noting with surprise that UFC athletes compete with four-ounce gloves.
“That’s insane,” Garcia said. “They might as well not even have a lot. Why not just bare knuckle? F**k it.”
Garcia then realized and explained the reasoning: “You got to be able to grab, that’s why. You got to be able to grab the opponent.”
Arman then asks, “But you compete with 8 or 10?”
Garcia confirmed he competes with eight-ounce gloves in boxing.
When the conversation turned to Tsarukyan’s potential boxing crossover, he said that he would consider it, but not for many years: “Maybe in seven years. When I’m like 35, 36. When I’m done with UFC. I would do like a spar, like with guys like influencers.”
