{"id":100829,"date":"2025-08-27T23:53:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T23:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/100829\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T23:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T23:53:08","slug":"paddys-the-fight-topuria-should-be-targeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/100829\/","title":{"rendered":"Paddy\u2019s The Fight Topuria Should Be Targeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ilia Topuria doesn\u2019t have his next title defense locked up just yet, though the logical step would be to give Arman Tsarukyan the chance to fight for the title since he is, after all, the No. 1 ranked fighter <\/a>in the Lightweight division and on a four-fight win streak.<\/p>\n

Another name tossed around is Justin Gaethje, the hard-hitting 155-pound slugger who is ranked No. 5 in the division, 3-1 in his last four and coming off a win over Rafal Fiziev. But according to former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Bantamweight champion, Dominick Cruz, there is a bigger fight \u2014 money-wise \u2014 that \u201cEl Matador\u201d should be targeting in the form of Paddy Pimblett.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis thing\u2019s about paychecks at a time. We\u2019re prize fighters,\u201d Cruz said on the \u201cAnik & Florian Podcast.\u201c<\/a> (via MMA Junkie<\/a>). \u201cWe\u2019re not anything else. We want to say we\u2019re all these other things. We are prize fighters. You put a prize out there, we take the prize, you win it, or you lose it. Who\u2019s the biggest prize? We all know the answer to this between those three,\u201d said Cruz, who makes the case for \u201cThe Baddy\u201d for the simple fact that he knows how to seel a fight compared to the other two options.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, if you\u2019re smart, you take that fight like that guy\u2019s the bag. Now, not to say the other guys aren\u2019t good, but the problem is Paddy, it\u2019s just that he promotes, he talks, he\u2019s got a very big package. It just makes sense to make the most money with that fight. But now with this new deal coming forward, too, does that change the layout of if you care who you fight. Now are you just looking for the better, easier matchup?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Baddy\u201d has really found his groove inside the Octagon, winning all seven of his fights for the promotion which includes his most recent technical knockout (TKO) win over Michael Chandler at UFC 314 (see it again here<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ilia Topuria doesn\u2019t have his next title defense locked up just yet, though the logical step would be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396],"class_list":{"0":"post-100829","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}