After winning the lightweight title over the weekend, Ilia Topuria wasted no time before taking a verbal jab at Paddy Pimblett, who was sitting in the crowd. The moment led to Joe Rogan welcoming The Baddy to the Octagon for a face-to-face staredown with the newly minted champ, which wound up turning physical when El Matador shoved the streaking Scouser.
With El Matador eager to defend the belt against Pimblett, and The Baddy declaring that he, quote, “hates” El Matador, let’s take a look back at the origins of the Ilia Topuria-Paddy Pimblett beef.
Paddy Pimblett Fires Back At Guram Kutateladze
Back in 2021, Guram Kutateladze called out Paddy Pimblett after a split decision win over Mateusz Gamrot in his UFC debut.
At the time, Pimblett dismissed the callout on social media, calling Georgians “dumb” in a post that has since been deleted. Fortunately, MMAMania has the receipts:
“Just cause that ugly little c*** has tweeted about me means nothing! He’s just the first fighter to tweet about me, there’ll be another 3 by the end of the week! I’d finish Guram, pal, it’s that simple. You Georgians are so dumb.”
The comment about Georgians caught the attention of Ilia Topuria, who fired back:
“Calling others ugly when you are so ugly that I can’t even open your photo because I don’t have the antivirus! You seem to have a body ready to donate to science!”
As fate would have it, the Ilia Topuria-Paddy Pimblett beef was just getting started.
Paddy Pimblett Crosses the Line
In response to Ilia Topuria injecting himself into the mix, Pimblett doubled down on his verbal attack on Georgians. In another tweet that has since been deleted, The Baddy wrote:
“A Georgian calling someone a bum, funny s*** man!” Tell one of them to f*****g say something when they see me, but they won’t! Say s*** behind your phone screens cause yous are b*****s.”
But that wasn’t all, Pimblett then followed it up with another post where he referenced Georgia’s history with Russia. To quickly recap, Georgia didn’t gain its independence until 1918. Just several years later, however, the country was forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union when the Soviet army invaded.
It wasn’t until 1991 that the country declared independence amid the collapse of the USSR, however, in 2008, South Ossetian separatists, backed by Russia, began attacking Georgian villages.
When Georgia responded, Russia invaded, leading to a bloody conflict that ultimately saw France broker a ceasefire.
Because of that, Topuria was left furious over Pimblett’s follow-up, in which he wrote:
“Lad how stupid are these Georgians, man. No wonder the Russians terrorize their lives.”
El Matador clapped back, educating the Scouser on the significance of the conflict:
Ilia Topuria-Paddy Pimblett Beef Turns Physical in London
Although Paddy Pimblett deleted his posts and backtracked, writing that he wasn’t fully aware of the history between the two countries, the feud didn’t end there.
The following year, when Pimblett and Topuria were both set to compete on the UFC Fight Night: Volkov vs. Aspinall card on Mar. 19, 2022, the pair got into a heated altercation at the fighter hotel.
The moment was captured by The Mac Life:
Topuria then made it clear that eventually, the two would throw down, whether it was in the cage, or on the street.
On the heels of his big win over Charles Oliveira on Saturday night, both fighters are eager to finally settle things.
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