‘I reckon I proper hurt him’: Paddy Pimblett confident he’d beat Ilia Topuria in UFC ‘money fight’
Paddy Pimblett is rooting for Ilia Topuria to become lightweight champion this month.
Topuria faces former champ Charles Oliveira for the vacant title in the main event of UFC 317 on June 28 in Las Vegas. Pimblett, who is on a tear, and coming off of the biggest win of his career against Michael Chandler at UFC 314, believes Topuria knows good business and, should he defeat Oliveira, he’ll likely call for a fight against “The Baddy.”
Pimblett discussed this during a conversation with UFC interim champ Tom Aspinall.
“If Ilia wins and says he wants to fight me, the UFC will make that fight because they know it’s a money fight,” Pimblett said on Aspinall’s YouTube channel. “That’s one of those fights there’ll be a f*cking world press tour like McGregor-Aldo.
“I know I’d beat him. [It’s] funny because I get laughed at for it. But I know I beat him. We’ve already talked about game plans to beat him, and I know how to beat him.”
Topuria and Pimblett have quite the history of hotel run-ins, and press conference near-skirmishes. But now that they officially share the same division, this is certainly a fight that would generate a lot of buzz.
For Pimblett, it isn’t about getting a big pay day and having his face on a poster: He truly believes that not only would he beat Topuria, he’d do it in a lopsided fashion.
“No one goes for his weaknesses when he fights them,” Pimblett explained. “Everyone just decided to have a boxing match with him. I’m not going to come out and have a boxing match with him, I’m going to beat him with my all-around MMA game.
“As I said, I know I’d beat him up, and I reckon I proper hurt him, and just shut everyone up even more — like I love to do.”