From throwing bottles at each other in hotel lobbies to bitter back-and-forth messages on social media, Ilia Topuria and Paddy Pimblett have a storied history.
Yet given the often-chaotic nature of such rivalries in the UFC, the origin of their intense feud can – through no fault of their own – be lost in translation.
During a recent appearance on the Full Send Podcast, Spanish-Georgian sensation Ilia Topuria explained exactly why he holds such strong feelings of resentment towards the Scouse standout.
Ilia Topuria explains his intense feud with Paddy ‘The Baddy’ Pimblett
At one stage of the interview on Full Send, the conversation shifted to Ilia Topuria’s star power and how it’s grown exponentially over recent years; compared to the star power of Paddy Pimblett.
“At the start, his hype was like – in the moment, he had a lot of hype, this and that, but [in terms of] quality of the fighter he is – man, come on, please. Don’t even compare me to that bum because we are on different levels.
“Everyone can see that now, we are on different levels,” claimed the 16-0 phenom, before revealing what happened to spawn such a bitter rivalry.
“He was very disrespectful to me, to my country, and all my people, he was just behaving like an idiot. He started to talk about the war we had against Russia.
“He said something like ‘Now I understand why the Russian put the bombs in Georgia’ – and many kids died in that war, many people died in that war… When you start to joke about that kind of thing, just make sure that we don’t find each other anywhere because I’m going to take your f—– head off.”
According to Topuria, Pimblett is attempting to build his hype by trolling and “laughing on people,” whereas he’s looking to build his UFC star power via highlight-reel stoppages.
Still, he has no problem with engaging with Pimblett, noting that “In my case, it’s real.
“I’ve had press conferences where I was respectful to my opponents because they were respectful to me. But when they tried to go in a different way – bro, I’m never looking for a problem, but if a problem comes to me, I say no problem.”
Huge UFC announcements made for both Ilia Topuria and Paddy Pimblett
Late last night, Dana White took to Instagram to announce several enormous pieces of fight news – two of which included ‘El Matador’ and ‘The Baddy’.
As per White, Ilia Topuria has officially vacated his UFC featherweight title and will now move up to lightweight, with rumors swirling of a potential showdown against Islam Makhachev.
The vacant featherweight title will be up for grabs in the main event of UFC 314 when former champion Alexander Volkanovski faces Brazilian Diego Lopes.
For the Scouse superstar, his return to the octagon has also been confirmed for that UFC 314 card in April – Pimblett will take on American power puncher, Michael Chandler.
“I want to fight in Miami and then Abu Dhabi in October, that’s the plan,” he stated on a recent VLOG shared via his YouTube channel.
“I hope I can get it. Beat this opponent, a top eight opponent, beat someone in the top four or top five, and then fight for the [UFC lightweight] belt.”
UFC 314 is scheduled for April 12 at the Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida.