If Ilia Topuria is serious about testing himself in the UFC’s lightweight fold, Paddy Pimblett says he is more than open to the challenge.

Featherweight champ Topuria, who is a perfect 16-0 in his career, has spoken at length in recent months of his desire to take on challenges at 155-pounds — not least of which is the division’s pacesetter, Islam Makhachev.

But if that potential bout looks to be far off in the distance, another undefeated (in the UFC) fighter says that he would happily re-engage the fighter he still calls ‘hand sanitiser boy’ stemming from a backstage incident ahead of a UFC fight card in the UK a couple of years ago in which the two came to loggerheads, with Pimblett throwing a bottle of sanitiser at the Georgian-Spaniard.

“Ilia’s a midget,” Pimblett said in an interview with Daniel Cortes, as reported by MMA Fighting. “People don’t understand how much bigger I am than Ilia. I’m so much bigger than him, people don’t realise. I’d love to do a stare down with him, just so everyone can see how much bigger I actually am than him.”

But the Liverpudlian makes no bones about the fact that Topuria would provide a stern test.

“Don’t get me wrong, he’s very good. Just because I don’t like him doesn’t mean I’m going to sit here and lie. He’s a very good fighter. He is. But I also think he got fast-tracked to the belt because Volk had cleared the featherweight division out already. I think he got fast-tracked to the belt.

He’d only beat Bryce Mitchell and Josh Emmett and got a title shot. He didn’t even have to beat Brian Ortega or Yair Rodriguez or Arnold Allen. He skipped these fighters and got to fight for the belt just because Volk had cleared the division out.”

Topuria has been near-perfect at 145-pounds in the UFC, as evidenced by his knockout wins over Volkanovski and Max Holloway; fighter who had been for years the standard-bearers at featherweight. But Pimblett says those wins come with a caveat.

“I think Volk fought far too soon [after losing the Makhachev, Volk was winning that first and second round until he got caught. I think the rematch is going to be very telling because, obviously, he knocked Holloway out. Holloway’s never been knocked out, but he’s been in several wars. He’s took a lot of damage.

“I think if he beats Volk a second time and then beats a Diego Lopes, then yeah, he could go down as the best featherweight of all time. But he’s talking about coming up to lightweight when he’s only had one title defense. I think you need to defend the belt at least three times if you want to fight for the belt in the division above.”

And according to Pimblett, all of this points to him if Topuria makes the jump.