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An undated picture of\u00a031-year-old Liverpudlian\u00a0Paddy Pimblett.\u00a0\u2014 Instagram\/theufcbaddy<\/p>\n
Paddy Pimblett is targeting a return to the octagon in July, hoping to compete during the UFC\u2019s annual International Fight Week. <\/p>\n
The event is scheduled for 11 July at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas and the 31-year-old Liverpudlian is still recovering from his defeat to Justin Gaethje in January but was present at UFC London on Saturday to support team-mate Luke Riley.<\/p>\n
During the post-fight press conference, UFC President Dana White asked Pimblett when he would like to return, to which he responded: “Hopefully international fight week.”<\/p>\n
The UFC is yet to announce any fights for the tent-pole summer event, but White replied. <\/p>\n
“Whenever he wants to fight, we’d love to have him back.”<\/p>\n
Pimblett missed the chance to face long-time rival Ilia Topuria after his loss to Gaethje in their interim lightweight title clash in Las Vegas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gaethje is now set to face the returning champion Topuria at UFC White House on 14 June in Washington.<\/p>\n
Several potential opponents await Pimblett on his comeback, including top-10 lightweights Charles Oliveira, Beno\u00eet Saint-Denis and Dan Hooker.<\/p>\n
Pimblett\u2019s defeat to Gaethje marked his first loss in the UFC and his first professional defeat since 2018, ending a long unbeaten streak that had established him as one of the promotion\u2019s rising stars. <\/p>\n
Despite the setback, the Liverpudlian remains determined to reclaim momentum in the lightweight division, with fans eager to see his next step in the UFC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An undated picture of\u00a031-year-old Liverpudlian\u00a0Paddy Pimblett.\u00a0\u2014 Instagram\/theufcbaddy Paddy Pimblett is targeting a return to the octagon in July,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,27019,785,239755,17498,1641,85,1638,787],"class_list":["post-557101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-gaethje","tag-mma","tag-octagon","tag-paddy-pimblett","tag-pimblett","tag-sports","tag-topuria","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557101","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=557101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}