Paddy Pimblett is feeling like the odd man out in the UFC lightweight division.
Pimblett (23-3 MMA, 7-0 UFC) hasn’t fought since finishing Michael Chandler to earn the biggest victory of his career at UFC 314 in April. Over the past few months, there’s been speculation that the UK star could be in line for a No. 1 contender matchup against either Justin Gaethje or Dan Hooker before the end of the year. However, neither fight materialized, leaving “The Baddy” on the sidelines.
"At the minute, I'm struggling to get a fight," Topuria told Marca. "People talk behind the scenes saying, 'I want to fight him. I want to fight him.' But when they get offered the fight, they don't take it. I'm just sitting in limbo, waiting for a fight. I thought I was going to fight Justin Gaethje in Abu Dhabi in October, but he's sitting out. Dan Hooker is fighting Arman Tsarukyan. Charles (Oliveira) just fought (Mateusz) Gamrot. There's no one really for me to fight apart from Ilia Topuria.”
Pimblett has shared a long-standing rivalry with Topuria (17-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC), and after “El Matador” vacated the featherweight title to move up to 155 pounds, the possibility of a fight between the two became much more realistic.
"Hopefully that fight gets sorted,” Pimblett said. “I think it would've been sorted by now if he would've signed the contract, but he's stalling. He's another one that talks a big game on the camera, but when it comes to signing the contract, he won't write his name on it."
"I should've been his first fight at lightweight, but it never happened. He got gifted a title shot. There's probably other people that are more deserving than me, but gift me the title shot, and we'll do one of the biggest fights the UFC has ever seen. We don't like each other. We genuinely don't like each other. We both want to hit each other, and he's got something that I want."
