Alexander Volkanovski is not willing to sit still while the UFC lightweight champion decides whether to fight or retire. The 38-year-old Australian used an appearance on The Ariel Helwani Show on Wednesday to lay out a plan that would move him up to 155 pounds and leave the featherweight title vacant.

“If I was champion at lightweight, I’m fighting Arman,” Volkanovski told Sherdog, rolling the hypothetical into a direct challenge to the division’s top contender.

The pitch is simple. Justin Gaethje, who took the 155-pound title at the White House card in June, has yet to commit to another fight. He is 37, nursing a deep bone bruise in a knee and ongoing problems with a hand, and has said he will take the rest of 2026 off before sitting down with family to settle his future. Volkanovski does not want to wait on that conversation.

A champion-versus-contender shortcut

The move would be unusual. Volkanovski still holds the featherweight belt he defended on October 24, when he stopped the previously unbeaten Movsar Evloev with a second-round TKO at UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi. Vacating a belt to drop into a title fight one weight up has rarely been the UFC’s preferred route, and Volkanovski has twice come up short against Islam Makhachev at lightweight in the past.

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He is leaning in anyway. Volkanovski told Helwani that fighting Tsarukyan excites him more than the Gaethje matchup he was publicly chasing a week earlier, and he took aim at the Armenian contender’s reputation as a grappler, saying he does not believe Tsarukyan can hold him down.

Tsarukyan is ready to pivot too

Tsarukyan, the clear top contender after a first-round knockout of Mauricio Ruffy at UFC 331 in September, is working the same angle from the other side. He told Fight Sports that he views Gaethje as the one avoiding the matchup, and that his patience has a deadline.

“Someone is trying to duck me; it’s Justin Gaethje,” Tsarukyan said to Fight Sports. “Either UFC is going to pay him so much money that he’s going to fight, or he’s just going to retire.”

He expects the UFC to tell him by the end of November what the plan is. A fight against Volkanovski for a vacant 155-pound title is the backup he is openly willing to accept.

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Not the only option on Volkanovski’s table

Lightweight is not Volkanovski’s only path. He also floated a featherweight defense against Aljamain Sterling, according to Yahoo Sports, with that scenario depending on Sterling winning at the UFC’s November 21 card in Qatar.

Nothing has been booked. Tsarukyan said the UFC has set the end of November as the moment of truth on Gaethje’s status.

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