UFC Lightweight Champion Ilia Topuria might be fighting Justin Gaethje in the main event of UFC Freedom 250 at The White House on June 14, but there is still no love lost between himself and Paddy Pimblett. 

The two men have had bad blood for a long time, to the point where many people, including Topuria himself, thought it would be Pimblett challenging “El Matador” at The White House. However, Pimblett would lose his Interim UFC Lightweight Championship fight against Gaethje causing the fight with Topuria to be put on hold. The current champion was a recent guest on “The Ariel Helwani Show” where he admitted that at one point, he wanted Pimblett to win as that was the bigger fight for The White House. “At some point I was rooting for Paddy because I was thinking that fight will be much bigger than the Justin fight, but everything happens for a reason you know what I mean?” 

When asked if he was surprised at the fight between Pimblett and Gaethje went, Topuria admitted that he was, but only in Pimblett’s performance which proved to him what type of fighter he really is. “I was a little surprised yeah, I was a little surprised of how bad Paddy really is,” Topuria said. “I was expecting him to win to be honest. I was expecting him to take Justin down to, I don’t know, to do a different fight, like to really fight. But what he did inside the octagon in that fight, it surprised me a little bit. He really proved that he’s a little sausage.”

As for when Pimblett will return to the cage, that is still unknown at the time of writing. However, Topuria doesn’t see “The Baddy” getting back in title contention any time soon “Of course, but how is he going gain the skills, the technique in this sport? Like that’s basically impossible. He needs to die and be born again.”

Please credit “The Ariel Helwani Show” when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.