MMA celebrity turned analyst, Chael Sonnen has rigorously noticed the long-running feud between Ilia Topuria and Paddy Pimblett. He believes that the latest on-line trash-talk may very nicely flip into an actual combat as tensions between the 2 started as early as 2022.
“The Baddy” has often tried to reignite his beef with Topuria. In one in every of his latest interviews, he referred to as the reigning featherweight champion a ‘midget’, and confirmed curiosity in combating the Georgian if he strikes as much as 155 lbs.
Pimblett additionally believes that Alexander Volkanovski clearing the featherweight division helped Topuria rapidly seize the belt, and he’ll seemingly be overwhelmed by his opponents’ dimension at light-weight.
“The American Gangster” finds this callout attention-grabbing as a result of it has all of the potential to supply an ideal combat given the very actual unhealthy blood between the 2 fighters. Right here’s what he stated on the matchup in a latest video on his YouTube channel:
“Paddy the baddy is keen to welcome Ilia Toporia to 155 kilos. Now, it’s not Paddy’s first alternative as a result of Ilia is just not a large enough identify however he’ll do it due to the hand sanitizer incident—he wished to offer him a beating again then, so he’ll simply delay that need to whip Ilia Topuria till now at 155 kilos. Regardless that Ilia doesn’t fairly have the identify recognition now, I summarized, okay?”
The previous title challenger thinks Pimblett may be attempting to get the match with “El Matador” on the excellent time. The featherweight champ has expressed his need to maneuver up a weight class to problem light-weight champion Islam Makhachev, who, apparently, appears reluctant at hand out a title shot to a different featherweight champ instantly.
So, having Pimblett welcome Topuria to the light-weight division may be win-win for all of the events concerned.
“However, from a efficiency standpoint, that’s nice. That’s nice stuff by Paddy to declare that he’s keen to do a favor for the world champion—keep in your weight class, combat for a world title, activate the participation clause of your contract, the one clause which you can have in MMA that may make you tens of millions of {dollars} in a single evening. Depart all of that to come back as much as 155 over a private feud the place no title is on the road, no legacy is on the road.”
Due to their notorious alteration in 2022, Sonnen is assured that Pimblett vs. Topuria is definitely not a far-fetched dream:
“However we do have this incident with the hand sanitizer, and you realize what? They do have unfinished enterprise. I keep in mind that evening very nicely.”
Though he’s by no means fought at light-weight, knocking out Volkanovski and Max Holloway in back-to-back fights has skyrocketed Topuria’s recognition. On the flip facet, Pimblett’s largest wins are Tony Ferguson and King Inexperienced, and followers are nonetheless uncertain of his potential for the reason that controversial Jared Gordon combat.
