accosted Pimblett at a hotel during UFC London Fight Week in 2022<\/a>. Since then, the two have traded shots at each other and even faced off with each other after Topuria won the lightweight title. But for all the animosity between them personally, Pimblett acknowledges that Topuria is an elite opponent.<\/p>\n\u201cI definitely have more respect for him,\u201d Pimblett said. \u201cBecause when he started all that shit back then, I didn\u2019t even know who he was. When he started to attack me in the hotel, I didn\u2019t know who he was. I genuinely did not know who Ilia Topuria was. And I didn\u2019t think he\u2019d be this good, I\u2019m not going to lie. I thought he was just using my name to get big off, and he did.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe used my name to get more well-known and to have more people know who he was, but he\u2019s a very good fighter. Even though I don\u2019t like him, I wouldn\u2019t lie and say that he\u2019s not. He does that sometimes about me. But I have got respect for him as a fighter, but not as a person.\u201d<\/p>\n
And should the future come to pass as Pimblett has suggested, with Pimblett winning the title and being promoted to undisputed champion while Topuria manages his personal issues, Pimblett knows who he\u2019d like to defend his belt against, and it\u2019s not No. 1 contender Arman Tsarukyan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it would do more for me legacy fighting Charles [Oliveira] or Max [Holloway],\u201d Pimblett said. \u201cAnd I love watching both of them fight. I\u2019ve said for years now, me vs. Charles Oliveira would be an amazing fight. I\u2019d love to fight Charles Oliveira. That\u2019s if he can get past Max Holloway.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, Arman can just sit in line and do as he\u2019s told. He doesn\u2019t do as he\u2019s told enough because he thinks that his dad can pay his way out of things, because he\u2019s got a lot of money. But Arman can eat shit. I\u2019m sick of hearing about him. He\u2019s an absolute beaut.\u201d<\/p>\n
Holloway and Oliveira rematch each other for the \u201cBMF\u201d title in the main event of UFC 326 on March 7, in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, Pimblett takes on Gaethje at UFC 324 on Jan. 24, also in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paddy Pimblett believes there\u2019s a chance Ilia Topuria gets stripped of his lightweight title. Earlier this year, Topuria…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261075,"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-344780","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\/344780","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=344780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}