Paddy “The Baddy” Pimblett got some extracurricular scuffling in this week when he threw a bottle of hand sanitizer at fellow UFC fighter Ilia Topuria’s head. At the press conference on Thursday, he detailed his side of the ordeal.
“Who’s that? Oh, ‘hand sanitizer boy?’ Is that who you mean? Yeah, that’s his name for that one lad, don’t refer to him as his name, his name’s ‘Hand Sanitizer’ because it got bounced off his head.
Paddy Pimblett Slams Ilia Topuria: “Who even is he?”
But I don’t concern myself with none of that. He wanted to come at me and try and act hard and he got put in his place. I was stood there on my own and there was about six of them and he done nothing.
If he wanted to do something then he would have come around the table and tried to have a fight with me, but he didn’t, he stood on the other side of the table because he knows what’s good for him.”
Pimblett put the incident down to a case of “small man syndrome”. He also pointed out that he didn’t want to punch anyone and risk damaging his moneymaking hands ahead of a professional fight. “As soon as he came out of them double doors, he just snarled at me.
So I looked at him and said, ‘What?’ And then he walked towards me and I said, ‘What’s happening, lad?’ Then as he got close to me, he swiped a slap at me and obviously, if you raise your hands at me, [I’m not gonna hurt my hand] and not be able to fight and earn my money on the weekend.
So I stepped back and picked up the hand sanitizer and bounced if off his head. He’s just got a bit of small-man syndrome. He’s only 5-foot-7 isn’t he, so try to leave the little men to it.
I can’t let something like that happen. I can’t start throwing punches and get cut off the card or break my hand hitting someone. Especially someone so meaningless.”
The pair aren’t fighting this weekend, but both will appear on the UFC London card. Pimblett will take on Rodrigo Vargas, while Topuria is set to take on Jai Herbert. Paddy will appear on the main card for his second UFC appearance.
“Who even is he? Seriously, who is ‘Mr. Hand Sanitizer?’ He’s a no one. He used my name for followers and to gain some publicity and he put a video up and made himself look like a right tool.
He’s not gonna win though. I know full well, I know Jai. I know Jai is gonna knock him out and send him crawling back down to the featherweight division.”
What do you think of Pimblett vs Topuria in the hotel lobby? Let us know in the comments.
