{"id":234369,"date":"2025-10-23T12:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T12:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/234369\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T12:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T12:23:07","slug":"pimblett-claims-topuria-wont-sign-contract-to-fight-him-hes-stalling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/234369\/","title":{"rendered":"Pimblett claims Topuria won\u2019t sign contract to fight him: \u2018He\u2019s stalling\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paddy Pimblett hasn\u2019t competed since an April trouncing of Michael Chandler<\/a> that propelled him into the lightweight title conversation. Now he\u2019s lashing out at 155 pound champion Ilia Topuria, who he claims is refusing to sign a contract to fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now I\u2019m struggling to get a fight,\u201d Pimblett told Marca.<\/a> \u201cPeople talk a lot behind the scenes saying: \u2018I want to fight him, I want to fight him\u2019, and then when it comes time for the fight, they don\u2019t accept it. So I\u2019m sitting in limbo waiting for the fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a> it\u2019s a title shot or retirement,<\/a> leaving Paddy in limbo.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I was going to fight Gaethje in Abu Dhabi in October, but he\u2019s not going to be involved,\u201d Pimblett said. \u201cDan Hooker is going to fight Arman Tsarukyan and Charles [Oliveira] just fought Gamrot. There\u2019s no one else I can fight, apart from Ilia Topuria, so hopefully that fight will be sorted out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it would have been sorted out by now if he had signed the contract, but he\u2019s stalling. He\u2019s another one. He talks a lot behind the scenes, but when it comes to signing the contract, he doesn\u2019t put his name on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The word coming out of Topuria\u2019s camp is he\u2019s preparing to fight Gaethje<\/a> 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\u2019s opponent instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, it\u2019s the perfect time,\u201d Pimblett argued. \u201cWhen 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are probably other people who deserve it more than me, but give me the title shot and we\u2019ll do one of the biggest fights the UFC has ever seen. We don\u2019t like each other. We really don\u2019t like each other. It\u2019s not an act. We both want to hurt each other and he has something I want. So I\u2019ll make him suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paddy Pimblett hasn\u2019t competed since an April trouncing of Michael Chandler that propelled him into the lightweight title…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-234369","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","13":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234369","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=234369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}