Paddy Pimblett responds to rumored December Ilia Topuria fight

Paddy Pimblett claims he hasn’t been offered a fight against Ilia Topuria amidst rumors the two could square off next.

Sean O'Malley’s coach, Tim Welch, recently claimed to have heard rumors of a potential matchup between Pimblett (24-4) and Topuria (17-1) being in the works for December. However, while “The Baddy” admittedly wants to return in December, he says he hasn’t been offered Topuria and is open to fighting any of the top lightweights in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Pimblett claims he hasn’t been approached by the UFC about a potential Topuria fight, but is open to taking on the former two-division champ next, in addition to Arman Tsarukyan, Mauricio Ruffy, Charles Oliveira and current champ Justin Gaethje.

“I’d love to smash [Ilia’s] head in, lad, but we need to wait and see. No one spoke to me about it,” Pimblett told Eze Obasi. “[I could fight] Arman, Gaethje, Ruffy, Charles. There’s loads of names. If I fight against this year, it’ll be December, hopefully.”

Pimblett and Topuria have a longstanding rivalry, sparked by the Brit’s comments about Georgia, the latter’s native country. Moreover, Pimblett refers to Topuria as “sanitizer boy” after throwing a bottle of hand sanitizer at him at the London fighter hotel in 2022. They’ve also clashed at press conferences since then and publicly mocked one another for their title losses to Gaethje.