{"id":391017,"date":"2026-01-06T04:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T04:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/391017\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T04:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T04:46:08","slug":"paddy-pimblett-thinks-soccer-kicks-and-grounded-knees-should-be-legal-under-unified-mma-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/391017\/","title":{"rendered":"Paddy Pimblett thinks soccer kicks and grounded knees should be legal under unified MMA rules"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Paddy Pimblett is vying for a UFC strap later this month, but his mindset was rooted in the glory days of Pride FC seemingly, as he spoke on some amendments he would look to see applied to the unified rules of mixed martial arts. Pimblett will battle former UFC interim lightweight champ and ex-BMF champ Justin Gaethje in the headliner of UFC 324 on January 24th.<\/p>\n<p>The looming interim lightweight title challenger appeared on a recent vlog as a part of UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall\u2019s YouTube channel and addressed several subjects. During the Aspinall conversation, with an excerpt of the chat posted by X account <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/RedCorner_MMA\/status\/2008024203296116888\" rel=\"nofollow\">@RedCorner_MMA<\/a>, Pimblett said,<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t agree with stomping because your head\u2019s got nowhere to go, but a soccer kick where someone\u2019s sitting in guard and you can move the legs and kick them there, and knees to the head of the grounded opponent, so if someone shoots a sloppy takedown just to get a break, you should be able to knee them in the head.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Paddy Pimblett on Ilia Topuria and the UFC lightweight title situation<\/p>\n<p>It was apropos that Paddy Pimblett was talking to<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/tom-aspinall\/tom-aspinall-detractors-blasted-by-prominent-mma-heavyweight-champion-post-ufc-321\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Tom Aspinall<\/a> about not wanting to be caught in the position of an interim champion caught in limbo, with the divisional kingpin\u2019s status being unclear. This was expressed by Pimblett, who faces Justin Gaethje for the interim 155-pound strap, while reigning lightweight champion Ilia Topuria\u2019s timeline for a potential return is unclear due to personal issues.<\/p>\n<p>While speaking to his fellow UK combat compatriot in Aspinall, \u2018The Baddy\u2019 mentioned that he has heard rumblings that Topuria can be out for around a year or maybe even two years, depending on whether things get particularly ugly with his personal situation involving his estranged former partner.<\/p>\n<p>While the former Cage Warriors titleholder mentioned that he does want to test skills with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/justin-gaethjes-teammate-addresses-rumors-of-ilia-topuria-title-bout\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ilia Topuria<\/a> at some point to show MMA fans he can beat the Georgian-Spaniard fighter, but that if Topuria were out for a prolonged period of time, it might be best for the title to be vacated to create more movement in the division for active fighters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paddy Pimblett is vying for a UFC strap later this month, but his mindset was rooted in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,15502,82,1972,640],"class_list":{"0":"post-391017","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-paddy-pimblett","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tom-aspinall","15":"tag-ufc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391017","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=391017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}