{"id":306230,"date":"2025-11-25T16:17:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T16:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/306230\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T16:17:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T16:17:10","slug":"ilia-topuria-open-to-paddy-pimblett-matchup-if-islam-makhachev-is-off-the-board-pitches-new-ufc-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/306230\/","title":{"rendered":"Ilia Topuria open to Paddy Pimblett matchup if Islam Makhachev is off the board, pitches new UFC title"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Ilia Topuria\u2019s first choice for his next fight is Islam Makhachev, but if that can\u2019t happen, \u201cEl Matador\u201d wants to settle an old score.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The lightweight champion currently does not have his first title defense on the books with hopes of facing Makhachev, who recently became the welterweight champion after defeating Jack Della Maddalena in the main event of UFC 322.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Topuria has plenty of options, including top contender Arman Tsarukyan following his dominant stoppage win over Dan Hooker at UFC Qatar. But if the rising star had his choice, Topuria is choosing Paddy Pimblett if Makhachev is off the table.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI have Paddy on my mind,\u201d Topuria told <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/KOlmeneroMMA\/status\/1993300166829633865?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">\u00c1lvaro Colmenero<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019d like to fight Paddy if they don\u2019t let me move up to welterweight to fight Islam. Because the fight I would really like is against Islam in the third weight class. But let\u2019s see. Maybe I\u2019ll have one more fight, then in summer [maybe] there\u2019s a date when they\u2019ll let me move up to welterweight, and I\u2019ll fight for the third belt.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Topuria has had an incredible run in the UFC, but his past three-fight stint has been one of the great stretches in the history of the sport. Topuria knocked out Alexander Volkanovski to win the featherweight title at UFC 298 in February 2024, and then became the first to ever stop Max Holloway via strikes eight months later at UFC 308 in what would be his lone 145-pound title defense.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">After vacating the title in hopes for a fight with Makhachev, Topuria went on to knock out Charles Oliveira in June to become the lightweight champion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">If the UFC doesn\u2019t want Topuria to make a full move to welterweight, he has a different suggestion where a fight with Makhachev can still happen, but for a new championship.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cMaybe they\u2019ll create a new belt called the pound-for-pound title at a catchweight,\u201d Topuria said. \u201cSo I\u2019ll fight for that pound-for-pound belt. Let\u2019s see. There\u2019s plenty of options. Let\u2019s see what the future holds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Update: Tsarukyan responded to Topuria\u2019s comments on X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ilia Topuria\u2019s first choice for his next fight is Islam Makhachev, but if that can\u2019t happen, \u201cEl Matador\u201d&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-306230","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-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306230","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=306230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}