Paddy Pimblett doesn’t believe Ilia Topuria has the stardom to fight Islam Makhachev anytime soon.
Topuria is the UFC featherweight champion and has been linked to a fight with Islam Makhachev, the king at 155lbs, ever since he won his belt.
The Spaniard knocked out Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 298 in February last year to win the featherweight strap, before handing Max Holloway the first knockout defeat of his career in his first defence of it.
However, Pimblett believes Topuria needs to defend his belt a few more times, and doesn’t have the same aura as someone like Conor McGregor to get the fight with Makhachev.
“I can’t see Ilia fighting Islam,” Pimblett told Blood Red.
“You know what I mean, he’s only defended the belt once. Normally you need to defend the belt like three times.
“And he’s not that big of a star to just jump – he’s not McGregor, to just jump right up and fight for the other belt.
“I can’t personally see that happening, but we’ll see what happens. I heard Ilia is headlining UFC 314 against Volkanovski, but you don’t know until nothing is finalised with the UFC.”
UFC middleweight Bo Nickal seemingly spilled the beans about UFC 314’s main event, as he claimed on a podcast that Volkanovski would get his rematch with Topuria at Kaseya Center in Miami on April 13.
However, with no official announcement yet from UFC President Dana White, MMA fans have questioned if Topuria is being saved for a mega-fight with lightweight champion Makhachev,
If Topuria agreed to the fight, and won it, then he would become just the fifth fighter in the promotion’s history to hold two UFC titles simultaneously.
Only Amanda Nunes, McGregor, Daniel Cormier and Henry Cejudo can claim to have achieved that feat in the UFC.
Pimblett hasn’t fought in the UFC since submitting Bobby Green at UFC Manchester in July.
Although he has been rumoured to make his octagon return at UFC 314 in Miami, with Michael Chandler a potential opponent.
Pimblett has a history with Topuria that dates back to a UFC Fight Night event in March 2022, when the pair got involved in a heated incident in a hotel in London.
A video showed Topuria and his team approaching Pimblett in the fighter’s hotel, which caused the latter to throw a bottle of hand sanitiser and the former respond with an attempted punch.
Pimblett was heard saying, ‘do you think I’m scared of you’, while Topuria called the Liverpudlian a ‘b****’ numerous times.
The pair were also involved in a heated verbal exchange in a press conference for UFC 282, when both fighters featured on the same card again.
In November, Pimblett stated that he would ‘obviously’ be able to dethrone Makhachev of his UFC lightweight title.
“People always say do you think you’d beat Islam Makhachev and I’m like: ‘Obviously’,” Pimblett said on the StillTalkingShow.
“Do you think I’m going to sit here and go, ‘Ah, no, he’d beat me’. [If I said that] then I’m not a fighter. I’m a coward.
“I respect Islam, he’s a great champion. People will probably laugh at me for saying this, but obviously I think I’d beat him.
“I don’t think any man on this planet would beat me if I got in a cage with them. I think I’d beat everyone.
“In my mind no [he wouldn’t stand a chance]. I always say, if you think anyone in your division, or anyone that you’re rivals with, anything like that, can beat you, you’re in the wrong sport.
“Go and do football or rugby or cricket or basketball or hockey, where you’ve got a team where you can say: ‘Oh it was his fault, it was her fault.’”
Pimblett is ranked at 12th in the UFC lightweight rankings, with his next fight likely to come against a top ten opponent.