Paddy Pimblett compares his bitter rivalry with Ilia Topuria to McGregor vs. Nurmagomedov: ‘I want to disfigure him’

Paddy Pimblett didn’t expect to end up in the cage at UFC 317, but he was more than ready for a confrontation with Ilia Topuria after “El Matador” knocked out Charles Oliveira to become lightweight champion.

While UFC CEO Dana White wasn’t happy cageside officials allowed Pimblett to enter the octagon, the faceoff ended with a shove from Topuria and immediately started building towards one of the most anticipated fights the promotion could possibly pull off right now. Some rivalries might be manufactured, but Pimblett promises that his disdain for Topuria is all too real.

“I’m always prepared. I’m always ready to do that,” Pimblett said about the faceoff during the UFC 317 post-fight show. “We’ve got history. You don’t even need to sell that fight. It sells itself. Two people who genuinely dislike each other. You don’t really get that. We haven’t seen that since Khabib [Nurmagomedov] and [Conor] McGregor—two people who actually hate each other. Because I hate him.

“I wouldn’t even want to finish him fast. I’d want to finish him with a minute left in the fight after I’ve elbowed him 700 times. I want to disfigure him.”

The history between Pimblett and Topuria actually dates back several years when the former Cage Warriors standout was preparing to make his UFC debut.

At the time, Pimblett became embroiled in a public war of words with Georgian-born fighter Guram Kutateladze and that caught Topuria’s attention.

“I said shut up, you fake Russian and he didn’t like it,” Pimblett said about the social media interaction. “Ilia tries to say I was happy that bombs got dropped on Georgia when I never even knew they’d been to war. I’d never say nothing like that. When he didn’t like the fact that I mentioned Russia, I said back to Guram ‘shut up, no wonder the Russians terrorized your lives.’ That’s nothing to do with war in my eyes. That’s just something I said.

“Ilia still to this day, he said on the Joe Rogan podcast, he said ‘Paddy said he’s happy bombs got dropped in Georgia and kids died.’ I never said that at all.”

The bad blood between them eventually boiled over when Pimblett and Topuria got into a physical altercation at a UFC London event. The brief melee was broken up quickly, but not before Pimblett launched a bottle of hand sanitizer at Topuria.

That’s what led to Pimblett nicknaming the future two-division UFC champion “hand sanitizer boy.”

“He came over to me in London and he tried to jump me, to be honest,” Pimblett said when addressing the altercation with Topuria. “I was on my own. It’s a good job though, none of my team were there because if we was, it would have been a proper gang brawl. One of my teammates would have knocked his brother out and shit like that.

“He just come up to me and said something and he tried to punch me. I stepped out of the way, picked the hand sanitizer up, bounced it off his head and in all the commotion, nothing happened. Nothing happened after it.”

The history between them led to Topuria calling Pimblett a “blonde bitch” during his post-fight interview before inviting the “The Baddy” into the cage where they exchanged more than a few expletives.

Regardless of their personal beef, Pimblett gave Topuria credit for a job well done in his fight on Saturday where he scored a brutal first-round knockout of Oliveira to claim the vacant lightweight title. Pimblett had a feeling that’s how things were going to play out after he witnessed the walkouts from both fighters.

“I said before when he was walking out, I said Charles looks nervous and I thought Ilia looked very calm,” Pimblett said. “I think that made the difference in the first round. I think if Charles might have got through the first round, it might have been a little bit different. But he never got out of there as we seen.

“He’s got brilliant boxing, he’s got very good hands. He’s got power. When he swings them hooks, you need to get out of the f*cking way.”

Given their past, the hatred they share for each other, and then the in-cage confrontation at UFC 317, it’s difficult to imagine the promotion won’t capitalize on booking Pimblett against Topuria in the near future.

That’s exactly what both fighters want and Pimblett is more than excited to prove a whole lot of doubters wrong again.

“I’m more motivated when I’m like that, especially the fact that everyone thinks I’ll lose,” Pimblett said. “Everyone thinks that I’ll lose, nine out of 10 people probably think he’ll knock me out. I love proving people wrong. It just gives me this warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Just making people eat their own words.

“Looks like I could end up being the champion before I expected it.”

He also gave a parting shot to Arman Tsarukyan, who should probably get the next title shot based on the current rankings. Tsarukyan actually weighed in as the backup for the UFC 317 main event and Pimblett told him he should get used to that role.

“Tsarukyan, you can go and weigh in as an alternate again,” Pimblett said. “You little bitch.”