You\u2019ve probably noticed that the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Lightweight division still doesn\u2019t have its next title fight booked \u2014 but four names are circling the opportunity.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s Paddy Pimblett, Justin Gaethje, and the winner of this weekend\u2019s Arman Tsarukyan vs. Dan Hooker clash at UFC Qatar<\/a> (Sat., Nov. 22, 2025). And while the rumor mill suggests Pimblett could be next for reigning champion Ilia Topuria sometime in 2026, nothing is official<\/a>. Topuria has openly welcomed that matchup, but at this point, it\u2019s still just talk.<\/p>\n Now Pimblett, who is in Qatar to corner two teammates making their promotional debuts, has weighed in on Gaethje\u2019s stance.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t ever want to say a bad word about Justin Gaethje because he\u2019s a legend, but he\u2019s doing interviews lately being a proper b-tch \u2014 saying the UFC owe him, and he deserves it and all that,\u201d Pimblett told reporter Jamal Niaz. \u201cNo one\u2019s owed nothing. You fight for it.\u201d<\/p>\n Pimblett didn\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n \u201cMy last win, I beat someone in a better fashion, who was a higher-ranked opponent than he won in his last fight. I know he\u2019s a legend and he\u2019s done a lot for the company, but you can\u2019t just demand a title shot. Then you got Arman, who hasn\u2019t fought in 18 months.\u201d<\/p>\n Regardless of how the Lightweight shuffle ends, UFC has tough decisions ahead. Topuria vs. Pimblett is a massive grudge match<\/a> that could sell at any time, while Topuria vs. Gaethje<\/a> is guaranteed chaos and is more of a legacy-type fight for Topuria\u2019s resume.<\/p>\n Still, Pimblett believes the choice should be obvious.<\/p>\n \u201cMe and Topuria have got the storyline built in. It\u2019s all there,\u201d Pimblett said. \u201cIt\u2019s better for me that he won the belt. If Charles Oliveira won, I probably would\u2019ve had to fight someone else first. With Ilia, the storyline is already set. I don\u2019t understand why it\u2019s not already made and written in a contract, but we\u2019ll see what happens over the next few weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You\u2019ve probably noticed that the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Lightweight division still doesn\u2019t have its next title fight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396,14855],"class_list":{"0":"post-296126","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","15":"tag-videos"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296126","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=296126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}