1 week Ago By Brett Okamoto
MIAMI -- Paddy Pimblett is already one of the most popular fighters in the UFC. Now, he's knocking on the door of fighting for a championship as well. Pimblett, 30, improved to 7-0 in the UFC with a TKO victory over Michael Chandler in the co-main event of UFC 314 on Saturday night at the Kaseya Center.
The finish came at 3 minutes, 7 seconds of the third round after Pimblett moved to mount and dropped a series of 12-to-6 elbows. The ending sequence truly began at the start of the round, when Pimblett cut Chandler with a vicious knee to the head. "This is how we win," Pimblett said in his postfight interview in the Octagon.
"We gameplan, we use our fight IQ, and we beat motherf---ers up. Anyone else got any questions?" Immediately after the win, Pimblett called out former lightweight champion Charles Oliveira , as well as Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje , both of whom were in attendance. "Anyone in the top four, top five," Pimblett said.
"I want that world title. [People said] I'll never be champ ..
. I'll never get ranked. I'll never be on the top 10.
But what now? I won. Dustin, Justin, Charles or Arman [Tsarukyan ] -- any of them. "I respect Dustin, Justin and Charles.
Charles is the biggest legend of them all, and he gets called the best submission artist the UFC's ever seen. But I dispute that. I'm here.
" Chandler, who dropped to 1-4 in his past five fights, secured four takedowns, according to UFC Stats, including a couple of slams, but he failed to do much with them. He looked a little fatigued as early as the second round, which was probably due to some effective body work by Pimblett. Chandler accumulated only 2:44 of control time compared with 4:41 for Pimblett.
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