{"id":412084,"date":"2026-01-16T01:13:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T01:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/412084\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T01:13:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T01:13:16","slug":"paddy-pimblett-open-to-fighting-arman-tsarukyan-anytime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/412084\/","title":{"rendered":"Paddy Pimblett open to fighting Arman Tsarukyan \u2018anytime\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cThe Baddy\u201d already has future plans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-mma-rankings\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">No. 5-ranked<\/a> Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Lightweight contender Paddy Pimblett headlines his first UFC event next weekend (Sat., Jan. 24, 2026) when he collides with former interim champion Justin Gaethje in the main event of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-fight-cards\/406095\/ufc-324-fight-card-start-time-date-location-gaethje-vs-pimblett\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UFC 324<\/a>, which goes down inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">If Topuria is unable to return this summer, Pimblett says he would have no issue defending the interim title \u2014 including against No. 1-ranked Lightweight Arman Tsarukyan, who has been largely <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/2025\/1\/19\/24347076\/bye-dana-white-boots-arman-tsarukyan-back-to-the-drawing-board-after-bailing-on-ufc-311\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">frozen out by the promotion<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cIt\u2019s annoying that people are saying I\u2019m ducking Arman \u2014 I\u2019ve never been offered to fight Arman,\u201d Pimblett told reporters during a pre-fight scrum. \u201cIf I was ever offered that fight, I would\u2019ve punched his head in by now. He irritates me. I think he\u2019s an absolute helmet. So yeah, I\u2019d fight Arman in a heartbeat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cIf Ilia can\u2019t fight until June or July, he should be stripped because he\u2019s holding the division up,\u201d Pimblett added. \u201cI\u2019ll defend against Arman, Max, Charles \u2014 whoever. I don\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Baddy\u201d already has future plans. No. 5-ranked Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Lightweight contender Paddy Pimblett headlines his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,82,153471,139445,702,3194],"class_list":["post-412084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-324","tag-ufc-on-paramount","tag-ufc-news","tag-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412084","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=412084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}