{"id":597479,"date":"2026-04-10T08:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T08:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/597479\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T08:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T08:10:09","slug":"ilia-topuria-admits-he-expected-to-face-paddy-pimblett-at-ufc-freedom-250","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/597479\/","title":{"rendered":"Ilia Topuria admits he expected to face Paddy Pimblett at UFC Freedom 250"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>UFC champion Ilia Topuria has admitted that he expected to face Paddy Pimblett in the main event of UFC Freedom 250.<\/p>\n<p>As we know, Ilia Topuria is the king of the lightweight division right now and arguably the biggest active star in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. In his next outing, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/ilia-topuria\/ilia-topuria-issues-chilling-prediction-for-justin-gaethje-fight-at-ufc-freedom-250\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">he will defend the belt in the main event of the UFC White House card<\/a> against Justin Gaethje, who earned his shot by defeating Paddy Pimblett for the interim title.<\/p>\n<p>RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/ilia-topuria\/ilia-topuria-accuses-islam-makhachev-running-away-too-much-money\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ilia Topuria accuses Islam Makhachev of \u2018running away\u2019 following claims he asked for too much money for UFC White House super fight<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Many had hoped to see Pimblett get the better of Gaethje, if only because it would have set up an absolutely huge showdown against Topuria. Alas, it didn\u2019t quite happen that way, and now, the American will be the one who gets the chance to dethrone Ilia and hand him his first professional MMA defeat.<\/p>\n<p>In a recent interview, Topuria admitted that he thought it was going to be Pimblett who came out on top in that clash.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Topuria on not facing Pimblett in next fight<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m surprised because I thought that Paddy was gonna win that fight against Justin,\u201d Topuria admitted during a recent interview.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was thinking [to] myself before that fight that I would face Paddy, because since the first moment that they announced the White House, I always knew that I would be in that event.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, I was like, \u2018If Justin is gonna fight Paddy, I\u2019m gonna fight the winner, and I think that Paddy is gonna win that fight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m surprised because of that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Quotes via <a href=\"https:\/\/bloodyelbow.com\/2026\/04\/09\/ilia-topuria-admits-he-expected-to-fight-paddy-pimblett-at-the-white-house-im-surprised\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Bloody Elbow<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Given the rivalry that exists between both men, you would have to imagine that a fight between them is destined to happen at some point in the future.<\/p>\n<p>If Ilia Topuria vs Paddy Pimblett had been the main event of UFC Freedom 250, who would you have backed to pick up the win and why? Let us know your thoughts on this in the comments below, BJPENN Nation!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC champion Ilia Topuria has admitted that he expected to face Paddy Pimblett in the main event of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-597479","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-mma","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597479","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=597479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}