{"id":620942,"date":"2026-04-22T11:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T11:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/620942\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T11:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T11:44:08","slug":"ilia-topuria-still-shocked-by-paddy-pimbletts-mediocrity-he-needs-to-die-and-be-born-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/620942\/","title":{"rendered":"Ilia Topuria still shocked by Paddy Pimblett\u2019s mediocrity: \u2018He needs to die and be born again\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

UFC 324<\/a> was supposed to be the Paddy Pimblett show.<\/p>\n

Instead, Gaethje beat Pimblett from pillar to post (watch here)<\/a>, walked away with interim gold, and will now take Pimblett\u2019s would-be opportunity against Topuria at the UFC White House<\/a>. It was a bit of a bummer for Topuria<\/a>, who was looking forward to a high-profile grudge match as his first title defense. Three months later, Topuria is less bothered by losing the chance to face Pimblett, but he still can\u2019t believe how badly the Englishman performed and questioned whether he can ever become a true contender.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a little surprised at how bad Paddy really is,\u201d Topuria told Ariel Helwani<\/a>. \u201cI was expecting him to win, to be honest. I was expecting him to take Justin down, to do a different fight. What he did inside the Octagon in that fight, it surprised me a little bit. He really proved that he\u2019s a little sausage.<\/p>\n

\u2026 Rebound from a loss? Of course, but how he is going to gain the skills and technique needed in the sport? That\u2019s basically impossible. He needs to die and be born again \u2026 now he\u2019s too far [down the rankings], we don\u2019t see him in the horizon anymore. Bye Paddy. I didn\u2019t even have to step inside the octagon to beat him, so that feels even a little bit better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC 324 was supposed to be the Paddy Pimblett show. Instead, Gaethje beat Pimblett from pillar to post…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,82,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-620942","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-ufc-mma-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620942","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=620942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}