Paddy Pimblett hasn’t competed since an April trouncing of Michael Chandler that propelled him into the lightweight title conversation. Now he’s lashing out at 155 pound champion Ilia Topuria, who he claims is refusing to sign a contract to fight.
“Right now I’m struggling to get a fight,” Pimblett told Marca. “People talk a lot behind the scenes saying: ‘I want to fight him, I want to fight him’, and then when it comes time for the fight, they don’t accept it. So I’m sitting in limbo waiting for the fight.”
According to Pimblett, he was prepared to face Justin Gaethje in a No. 1 contender eliminator bout at UFC 321. Unfortunately, Gaethje has made it clear it’s a title shot or retirement, leaving Paddy in limbo.
“I thought I was going to fight Gaethje in Abu Dhabi in October, but he’s not going to be involved,” Pimblett said. “Dan Hooker is going to fight Arman Tsarukyan and Charles [Oliveira] just fought Gamrot. There’s no one else I can fight, apart from Ilia Topuria, so hopefully that fight will be sorted out.”
“I think it would have been sorted out by now if he had signed the contract, but he’s stalling. He’s another one. He talks a lot behind the scenes, but when it comes to signing the contract, he doesn’t put his name on it.”
The word coming out of Topuria’s camp is he’s preparing to fight Gaethje for the first major event on Paramount+ in January. But there have been rumblings behind the scenes that Pimblett is still being seriously considered as Topuria’s opponent instead.
“Yes, it’s the perfect time,” Pimblett argued. “When he moved up to lightweight, I said I should be the one to welcome him. I should have been in his first lightweight fight, but it never happened and he was gifted a title shot.”
“There are probably other people who deserve it more than me, but give me the title shot and we’ll do one of the biggest fights the UFC has ever seen. We don’t like each other. We really don’t like each other. It’s not an act. We both want to hurt each other and he has something I want. So I’ll make him suffer.”