Paddy Pimblett is coming off the biggest win of his career, a third round TKO of Michael Chandler that put him into the lightweight top ten. And while he’s prepared to continue working his way up the rankings if he has to, he has a feeling a title shot could come his way at UFC 317 if Ilia Topuria beats Charles Oliveira for the 155 pound strap.
“If Ilia wins and says he wants to fight me, the UFC will make that fight,” Pimblett said in a new video with Tom Aspinall. “Because they know it’s a money fight. That’s one of them fights where they’ll do a f—ing world press tour like McGregor vs. Aldo.”
Topuria and Pimblett have been annoying each other for years now, and have even gotten into fighter hotel brawls. He’s expressed a willingness to kick Paddy’s ass. But when asked if he’d prefer to fight Pimblett or No. 1 ranked Arman Tsarukyan, Topuria said he’d go after Tsarukyan.
That’s probably because Ilia doesn’t perceive Paddy as a legit threat … which is his mistake, according to the Scouser.
“I know I’d beat him,” Pimblett said. “Funny cuz I get laughed at for it. But I know I beat him. We’ve already talked about gameplans to beat him. And I know how to beat him. No one goes for his weaknesses when they fight. Everyone just decides to have a boxing match with him. I’m not going to come out and have a boxing match with him. I’m going to beat him with my all-around MMA game.”
“As I said, I know I’d beat him up. And I reckon I’d proper hurt him and just shut everyone up even more, like I love to do.”
We’re not sure we’d classify Alexander Volkanovski’s performance against Ilia Topuria as a boxing match. Topuria kept the fight upright and forced Volkanovski to strike with him, and if he can do that to Alexander “The Great,” we have our doubts Pimblett could do something different.
But Pimblett keeps silencing the doubters with his recent performances, and he’s looking absolutely huge these days at lightweight. Is it at least a fight you’re interested in seeing, or is it all wolf tickets? Let us know in the comments below.
