Spinnin Backfist<\/a>. \u201cThat man\u2019s face is mashed up. He\u2019s not coming back before the end of the year and I\u2019d like to fight again before the end of the year.<\/p>\n\u201cSo we\u2019re just going to see what happens As you know, everything unfolds crazy in MMA. You don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen next. So let\u2019s just see what happens next.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pimblett had the chance to set up his own fight against Topuria earlier this year, but he came up short in his bid to win the interim UFC lightweight title after dropping a decision to Gaethje back in January.<\/p>\n
As much as he wanted to win that fight and then face Topuria for the undisputed belt, Pimblett felt there was almost some higher power at work to ensure that Gaethje would earn that opportunity instead so he could compete on the historic White House card in June.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got no animosity towards Justin Gaethje,\u201d Pimblett said. \u201cHe beat me. Better man won on the night. I think it was fate for him to beat me so he that could beat Ilia on the White House lawn and be the American in the main event who wins the title. I just think it was destiny.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why nothing happened over the eye pokes [in our fight] It was just destiny. He was meant to beat me so he could go and win on the White House lawn.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a perfect world, Pimblett would love to eventually get the chance to settle unfinished business with Topuria and also take the title from Gaethje, but both situations are hypothetical at this stage of the game.<\/p>\n
The bad blood towards Topuria is always going to linger in the air and Pimblett promises if they ever meet, that is the last time \u201cEl Matador\u201d ever competes at 155 pounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always say it: We have weight classes for a reason,\u201d Pimblett said. \u201cIlia Topuria is a fat featherweight. He\u2019s not a lightweight.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I ever fight him, people will realize that. If he fights me, he will move back down to [featherweight]. Because he will realize how small he is for the weight.\u201d<\/p>\n
As far as running it back with Gaethje in the future. Pimblett knows there\u2019s a path back to that rematch but it\u2019s going to take more than just a win over Saint Denis to get there.<\/p>\n
In fact, Pimblett isn\u2019t even pretending that a win at UFC 329 gives him the right to call for that fight just yet but he expects to run into Gaethje again in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, I\u2019d love that rematch. I\u2019d love to fight Justin again,\u201d Pimblett said. \u201cI know I\u2019ve got to work my way back to that. I can\u2019t just beat \u2018BSD\u2019 and be like yeah, I\u2019m next against Gaethje. I know that I\u2019m probably going to have to beat BSD and then beat someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paddy Pimblett has a huge obstacle ahead of him with a fight booked against Benoit Saint Denis in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-776901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776901","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=776901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}