Paddy Pimblett would \u2018love\u2019 to fight Ilia Topuria in enemy territory: \u2018Do it in Spain in front of your fake countrymen\u2019<\/a><\/p>\nRight now, there is a jam at the top of the lightweight division. Ilia Topuria is the reigning champion, but it\u2019s not clear as to who he\u2019s going to defend against first \u2013 and when exactly he\u2019s going to fight. Of course, Poirier is still familiar with a handful of names in the top 15, such as Justin Gaethje and Max Holloway.<\/p>\n
In a recent podcast appearance, Poirier spoke candidly about what he feels should be next for the biggest stars at 155 pounds.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Poirier\u2019s plan for lightweight division<\/p>\n
\u201cGaethje (should get the title shot),\u201d Poirier told MMA Junkie. \u201cHe\u2019s such a precise striker and he\u2019s so good. Gaethje puts himself in harms way. It would be a horrible matchup for Gaethje if he lunges in and gets sniped by one of those clean shots. But also it could be a tough fight for Topuria.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s one thing I\u2019m sure of: Respect to Paddy and what he\u2019s done \u2013 I don\u2019t think a win over Michael Chandler, on the skid Chandler is on and the way his fights have been going, deserves a title shot right away,\u201d Poirier said. \u201cI know he\u2019s exciting and people are talking about him, but I would like to see him fight one more top five guy. One more tough, tough test. And then we can talk title fights for him. I think it\u2019s a little bit rushed for Paddy, if we\u2019re talking about him and Ilia.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPut Max in there with Pimblett,\u201d Poirier said. \u201cThat\u2019s a fun fight to find out what level Paddy is really at. But there\u2019s a bunch of fun fights for Max, man. A bunch of fun fights. I would love to see Max vs. (Dan) Hooker as well. I\u2019m a fan of both guys and I know that would be a fun fight for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Quotes via MMA Junkie<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC legend Dustin Poirier has laid out what he would do with the current landscape of the lightweight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-179926","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-mma","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}