{"id":299509,"date":"2025-11-21T15:19:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T15:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/299509\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T15:19:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T15:19:12","slug":"champ-ilia-topuria-paddy-pimblett-cross-paths-at-ufc-qatar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/299509\/","title":{"rendered":"Champ Ilia Topuria, Paddy Pimblett cross paths at UFC Qatar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ilia Topuria wasn&#8217;t too excited to see Paddy Pimblett in Qatar.<\/p>\n<p>Both UFC lightweight champion Topuria (17-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC) and Pimblett (22-4 MMA, 7-0 UFC) are in Doha for cornering duties in Saturday&#8217;s UFC Fight Night 265 (ESPN+) event at ABHA Arena.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Topuria&#8217;s brother, Aleksandre Topuria (6-1 MMA, 1-0 UFC), takes on Bekzat Almakhan (12-2 MMA, 1-1 UFC). Pimblett is there to support two of his teammates. Luke Riley (11-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC) meets Bogdan Grad (15-3 MMA, 1-1 UFC), and Shaqueme Rock (12-1-1 MMA, 0-0 UFC) fights Nurullo Aliev (10-0 MMA, 2-0 UFC). All three of those bouts take place on the preliminary card.<\/p>\n<p>Pimblett enthusiastically greeted Topuria when seeing him from afar, but the champion wasn&#8217;t having it. Check out their encounter in the video below (h\/t <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/KOlmeneroMMA\/status\/1991755020619116624?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Alvaro Colmenero;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Alvaro Colmenero<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Pimblett is <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/article\/paddy-pimblett-accuses-ilia-topuria-233024467.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:vying for a title shot against Topuria;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">vying for a title shot against Topuria<\/a> after facing off with him after UFC 317. Also in the running are Justin Gaethje, and the winner of Saturday&#8217;s main event between Arman Tsarukyan (22-3 MMA, 9-2 UFC) vs. Dan Hooker (24-12 MMA, 14-8 UFC).<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/ufc\/2025\/11\/21\/ufc-qatar-video-ilia-topuria-runs-into-paddy-pimblett-confrontation-future-title-fight-opponent\/87390709007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Watch Ilia Topuria, Paddy Pimblett cross paths at UFC Qatar;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Watch Ilia Topuria, Paddy Pimblett cross paths at UFC Qatar<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ilia Topuria wasn&#8217;t too excited to see Paddy Pimblett in Qatar. Both UFC lightweight champion Topuria (17-0 MMA,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,17499,171239,785,17498,85,787],"class_list":{"0":"post-299509","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-ilia-topuria","12":"tag-luke-riley","13":"tag-mma","14":"tag-paddy-pimblett","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-ufc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299509","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=299509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}