Paddy Pimblett remains determined to put himself back in the mix for a lightweight title shot as he prepares to take on Benoit Saint-Denis at UFC 329, but would also relish the opportunity to get into the octagon against Conor McGregor before the end of the year.
Liverpudlian Pimblett lost out to Justin Gaethje on unanimous decision in their interim championship showdown at the end of January, with the American going on to stop Ilia Topuria at UFC Freedom 250, which was held outside the White House last month.
With Irishman McGregor making a comeback fight against Max Holloway – which will be his first in the UFC for five years – both men have more immediate priorities in Las Vegas on Saturday which they must overcome before stepping up talk of a potential showdown.
“You can’t look past any opponents in the UFC. Everyone is coming to kill you, to take your head off. There is no way that you can look past people,” Pimblett told the Press Association.
“The (lightweight) division is still stacked, as always. You have got Arman (Tsarukyan), Charles (Oliveira), Max – still multiple people ahead of me in the rankings that I need to beat, so we just have to move on from there and see who is next.”
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Pimblett added: “Obviously I would love a rematch (with Geathje), but it is one of them – I don’t demand things and don’t say ‘I want this, I want that’, so you have just got to beat who is in front of you.”
Former featherweight and lightweight champion McGregor was scheduled to return against Michael Chandler in 2024, but that fight was called off after he sustained a broken toe.
Last October, McGregor accepted an 18-month doping ban, backdated to September 2024, for three failures of the whereabouts system, but he is now eligible to compete again.
Pimblett said: “I would fight him (McGregor) after this fight, before the end of the year. I would love to have a little fight at welterweight, especially against someone who is a lightweight really.
“I would be a great night for me, a great camp, great weight-cut and I would love to fight him.
“It has been spoken about for years, but you don’t know what is going to happen. I have just got to beat the man who is front of me at the minute – and his name is BSD.”
