Outside Source
Topuria was originally looking to defend his lightweight title against Pimblett. However, Topuria recently announced that he is taking a short hiatus from action for personal reasons. Pimblett is now scheduled to fight Justin Gaethje for the interim lightweight title at UFC 324 on Jan. 24. Topuria wants Pimblett to beat Gaethje (26-5) and face him in a title unifier.
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Pimblett believes he will have a massive size advantage over Topuria at lightweight. “The Baddy” recalled Topuria standing next to former flyweight champion, Alexandre Pantoja, and looking nearly the same size.
‘Messy on His Face’
“I’ll beat him up as well,” Pimblett told the UFC. “He is very small compared to me. He’s not that wide. You’ve definitely seen the video of him and Pantoja standing next to each other and they looked the same weight. There’s weight classes for a reason. If he wants to fight me at 155, he’ll seriously get messy on his face.”
Pimblett (23-3) and Topuria (15-0) have a history, which started with the Englishman’s insensitive comments about “El Matador’s” home country of Georgia. Things came to a head when Pimblett threw a bottle of hand sanitizer at Topuria at a fighter hotel in London in 2022. However, Pimblett and Topuria appear to have since settled their differences and share mutual respect now.
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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