Paddy Pimblett running out of options for next fight: ‘There’s only Ilia Topuria left, really’

Paddy Pimblett has no fight date set up at the moment, and unless the UFC moves quickly the Liverpool fighter will be out until the second quarter of the year.

Pimblett hasn’t fought since a quick one minute submission win over Benoit Saint-Denis in July. He’s been idle since then, and it looks like he’ll be idle for the rest of the year unless UFC matchmakers pull something out of a hat for him.

When asked by All Out Fighting how close he was to announcing his next fight, he said, “Not close.”

“I don’t know what’s happening at the minute,” Pimblett continued. “We’re gonna have to find out. My division’s, like, all fighters in my division could be booked up. It’s looking like it’s Charles [Oliveira] versus [Diego] Lopes for the BMF. And then it looks like Arman [Tsarukyan]‘s fighting Justin [Gaethje].”

“And then there’s only Ilia [Topuria] and Max [Holloway] all the way ranked above me. I think Max is fighting for Conor [McGregor], to have that trilogy. So it’s only Ilia left, really. So, we’ll have to see what happens next few months.”

Pimblett was not a fan of going through his infamous Fatty to Baddy diet over the Christmas holidays, so you can rule a January fight out.

“Never fighting in January ever again,” Pimblett declared. “March, April is the -- if I don’t fight before the end of the year, it’ll be March, April.”

On the positive side, there literally doesn’t seem to be anyone else for Pimblett and Topuria to fight, so we might get that long-awaited fight by default. Paddy can’t wait and believes Ilia will be mentally weak following his loss to Justin Gaethje in June.

“He’s never he’s never lost before, so I don’t think he’ll ever be the same when he comes back,” Pimblett said. “You know, I lost my first fight when I was 18 and I had to build myself back up and then I had to do it again when I was 22, 23. He’s never lost before and he’s about 27 or something. So his whole aura was ‘unbeatable’ and this and that.”

“Now he’s being beat. That’s in his head, and I’ll prove that if I end up fighting him next.”