If Paddy Pimblett and Ilia Topuria end up crossing paths, the Liverpool man is confident he’ll get his hand raised.
The two fighters have engaged in a years-long rivalry following a fracas at the fighter hotel ahead of a UFC event in the United Kingdom several years ago, with Pimblett continually referring to his rival as ‘hand sanitiser boy’; the object that he flung in Topuria’s direction after their coming together.
But while that may have appeared to some as a fight that would never happen, given that at the time they competed in different weight classes (and more so after Topuria rose to world champion status as featherweight) the chances are now more realistic than ever given Topuria’s entry into the lightweight fold along with Pimblett’s extended winning sequence at 155.
Topuria will take on former champ Charles Oliveira later this month in the UFC 317 main event to determine a new lightweight champion following Islam Makhachev’s decision to move to welterweight in pursuit of Jack Della Maddalena’s welterweight championship — potentially setting up a Topuria-Pimblett clash down the line for a world title.
And if that fight comes to pass, Pimblett is confident he has the tools to become the first man to defeat Topuria in professional competition.
“If Ilia wins and says he wants to fight me, the UFC will make that fight because they know it’s a money fight,” Pimblett said to Tom Aspinall on his YouTube channel, as noted by MMA Fighting. “That’s one of those fights there’ll be a f*cking world press tour like McGregor-Aldo.
“I know I’d beat him. [It’s] funny because I get laughed at for it. But I know I beat him. We’ve already talked about game plans to beat him, and I know how to beat him.”
Pimblett adds that so far, many of Topuria’s opponents fall into his spider’s web of strikes — and as far as he is concerned, there is a quicker route to defeating him.
“No one goes for his weaknesses when he fights them,” he said. “Everyone just decided 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 proper hurt him, and just shut everyone up even more, like I love to do.”
