Former Cage Warriors featherweight champion, Paddy Pimblett is planning a run through the UFC’s featherweight ranks as their latest acquisition from the Graham Boylan-led organization — and has a couple opponents in mind for his promotional bow, including a past-foe.
Pimblett, a former undisputed 145-pound gold holder under the Cage Warriors banner has long been linked with an eventual move to the UFC — ever since his championship-clinching performance back in September of 2016, in fact, however, he elected to remain with the Cage Warriors promotion.
Predicting his own acquisition last month, Pimblett claimed that he would turn in a quickfire win over Italy’s Davide Martinez as part of the Cage Warriors Trilogy of events from York Hall — before penning a multi-fight deal with the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Scoring a rear-naked choke win over Martinez with just over a minute and change gone in the opening round, Pimblett stamped his UFC aspirations once more with the submission win, and explained that a call from the promotion came between just thirty-six and forty hours following his submission success.
Speaking with LowKick MMA reporter, Jordan Ellis recently, Pimblett laid out a couple of interesting potential opponents for his promotional debut, which he believes may come in late summer.
“No inkling in the slightest,” Pimblett replied when asked by Ellis when he could possibly be making his UFC bow. “I reckon it could be around, late July, (or) August something like that.“
“I do wanna get one (fight) in this summer,” Pimblett explained. “I wanna try to get two or three fights in before the end of the year. I wanna try and fight in quick succession when I have my first fight.“
In terms of potential opponents, Pimblett named dropped the likes of featherweight puncher, Jared Gordon, as well as former Cage Warriors opponent, Julian Erosa — amongst Guram Kutateladze, Billy Quarantillo, and Herbert Burns.
“Yeah, that fight (against Gordon) interests me, you know what I mean,” Pimblett said when asked if he was still interested in fighting the New York native. “I’ve seen a few people mention my name, I mean obviously, as you said, that Georgian mushroom (Guram Kutateladze), I think he’s been matched now. I think — is it Billy Quarantillo — he never called me out or anything, but he mentioned me on a podcast, I think he’s been matched now with Herbert Burns — another person who I was saying I’d fight.“
“Like yeah, I’d love to beat Jared Gordon up,” Pimblett explained. “He’s a nice fella and that, he’s a good opponent and all that, but I’d like to get that one back for Next Gen (Next Generation MMA Liverpool). Everyone keeps saying, Julian Erosa as well, which — that would be a good little rematch. Finish him this time, and shut a few yanks up.“