Mauricio Ruffy has brought one of the UFC’s most recognizable pieces of fight gear into his camp for Arman Tsarukyan.
Ruffy shared a training reel wearing blue-and-white shorts patterned after former UFC light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell‘s “Iceman” design. The Brazilian works through striking drills beside his coach in the clip, which arrives six weeks before the biggest assignment of his career.
The Throwback Comes Before A Five-Round UFC 331 Test
Ruffy and Tsarukyan are booked for the five-round co-main event at UFC 331 on September 19 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. The bout sits beneath Joshua Van’s flyweight title rematch with Alexandre Pantoja on the announced UFC 331 card.
The UFC 331 main card announcement lists Arman Tsarukyan vs. Mauricio Ruffy as the co-main event.
The shorts are a clear visual salute to Liddell, but Ruffy’s recent results have supplied their own reason for attention. He enters at 14-2, ranked No. 7 by the UFC, with 13 knockout victories and nine first-round finishes. His current two-fight run consists of stoppages over Rafael Fiziev and Michael Chandler.
Mauricio Ruffy stops Michael Chandler in the first round at UFC Freedom 250.
Ruffy finished Chandler with strikes at 4:29 of Round 1 on June 14. Five months earlier, he stopped Fiziev at 4:30 of Round 2. Those wins restored his momentum after Benoit Saint Denis submitted him with a rear-naked choke in September 2025.
Tsarukyan Makes The Ground Game The Real UFC 331 Question
The new reel is a striking session, while the matchup’s central technical question sits elsewhere. Ruffy’s official UFC statistics list 87 percent takedown defense, but Saint Denis remains the only opponent to beat him inside the promotion and did it after forcing the fight to the mat.
Tsarukyan is the UFC’s No. 2 lightweight and owns a 23-3 professional record with nine knockouts and six submissions. In his most recent UFC appearance, he submitted Dan Hooker with an arm-triangle choke at 3:34 of Round 2. That performance extended his MMA winning streak to five and is covered in MiddleEasy’s UFC Qatar highlights and result.
Arman Tsarukyan finishes a recent grappling appearance by armbar.
Tsarukyan also stayed active outside the Octagon in 2026, adding submission-grappling appearances while waiting for another UFC booking. The UFC 331 matchup now puts that pressure game against Ruffy’s finishing power over a possible 25 minutes.
The booking followed a change from the previously discussed Tsarukyan-Charles Oliveira rematch. Daniel Cormier later explained why he believed the UFC’s plans shifted to Ruffy. Whatever produced the change, the September matchup gives Ruffy a direct route from No. 7 to the front of the lightweight title conversation.
