Paddy Pimblett did his best Conor McGregor impression during a heated press conference exchange with Ilia Topuria ahead of UFC 282.
The Baddy is set to co-main event the final UFC pay-per-view card of the year when he fights Jared Gordon in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
Pimblett is just three fights into his career with MMA’s premier promotion but he is already one of the most popular fighters on the roster after three stoppage wins.
However, not everyone is a fan of the charismatic Liverpudlian and he has a fairly long-running feud with Topuria who will face Bryce Mitchell at UFC 282.
Ahead of UFC London in March, Pimblett threw a bottle of hand sanitiser at Topuria, and punches were exchanged before security stepped in to break up the scuffle.
Nine months later and it’s clear the two men still don’t like each other as things once again got heated when they were in the same room to talk up UFC 282.
“He’s obsessed with me. He hasn’t stopped tweeting about me all week. He needs to sort his life out. That little bum’s irrelevant,” Pimblett said.
“I haven’t seen him all week The UFC have kept us apart. Cause when I saw him last time, he got a hand sanitiser bottle bounced off his [head]. Hand sanitizer boy! You’re known as hand sanitizer boy, you little mongrel!”
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“Shut up. F*** you. You want to talk to me man to man, I went to your country, I slapped your face. I walk like a king in your streets,” Topuria responded.
“Shut up, or I’m going to stand up and crush your face right now.”
The 12-0 Georgian fighter tried to physically confront his rival but was quickly stopped by security and taunted by Pimblett who used one of McGregor’s famous phrases.
“Do it, then you little p***** – do something,” Pimblett said. “What’ll you do? You’ll do nothing! Go and sit back down. Sit back down you little p****.”
Notorious made ‘You’ll do nothing’ a famous MMA phrase back in 2016 when he was arguing with Nate Diaz ahead of their rematch at UFC 202.
The 34-year-old told Diaz ‘You’ll do nothing’ as he exited the press conference due to his rival’s tardiness before both men started flinging water bottles at each other.
McGregor, who is widely regarded as the biggest MMA star ever, is set to make his eagerly anticipated return to fighting in 2023 after a long injury lay off.
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