{"id":316245,"date":"2026-04-10T06:20:39","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T00:50:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=316245"},"modified":"2026-04-10T06:20:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T00:50:39","slug":"ilia-topuria-admits-he-expected-to-fight-paddy-pimblett-on-the-white-house-im-surprised","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/04\/10\/ilia-topuria-admits-he-expected-to-fight-paddy-pimblett-on-the-white-house-im-surprised\/","title":{"rendered":"Ilia Topuria admits he expected to fight Paddy Pimblett on the White House: ‘I\u2019m surprised’"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Follow us on Google Discover<\/span> <\/a> <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Ilia Topuria shouldn’t be shocked to search out himself headlining the largest MMA card of 2026. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The lightweight champion will face interim titleholder Justin Gaethje on the UFC White House event. <\/p>\n

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Nevertheless, Ilia Topuria was expecting to unify the division by beating another person on June 14. <\/p>\n

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Who’s the pound-for-pound primary?<\/h3>\n

Defend your pick within the comments. \u2b07\ufe0f<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Split image of Ilia Topuria and Islam Makhachev. Credit: Jeff Bottari\/Cooper Neill\/Zuffa LLC\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n

Ilia Topuria thought Paddy Pimblett would beat Justin Gaethje <\/h2>\n

Justin Gaethje picked up a unanimous decision win over Paddy Pimblett at UFC 324 in January.<\/p>\n

Ilia Topuria predicted pre-fight that \u2018The Baddy\u2019 can be an excessive amount of for Gaethje on the bottom. <\/p>\n

On the night, Pimblett made the ill-advised decision to face and bang with \u2018The Highlight\u2019. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m surprised because I assumed that Paddy was gonna win that fight against Justin,\u201d Topuria admitted during a recent interview. <\/p>\n

\u201cI used to be pondering [to] myself before that fight that I might face Paddy, because because the first moment that they announced the White House, I at all times knew that I can be in that event.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I used to be like, \u2018If Justin is gonna fight Paddy, I\u2019m gonna fight the winner, and I believe that Paddy is gonna win that fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m surprised due to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Is that this card White House worthy? \ud83e\udd14<\/h3>\n

Rate it out of 10 within the comments \u2b07\ufe0f<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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UFC White House line up. Credit: UFC\/X<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n

Ilia Topuria was near fighting Islam Makhachev as a substitute <\/h2>\n

When Paddy Pimblett didn’t get the job done, Ilia Topuria turned his attention to Islam Makhachev.<\/p>\n

A fight with the UFC welterweight champion reportedly fell apart 24 hours before the White House card was announced. <\/p>\n

Makhachev recently claimed that Topuria priced himself out of their potential UFC super fight. <\/p>\n

Dana White insisted that\u2019s \u2018not true\u2019 didn\u2019t occur before Topuria\u2019s manager went to bat for his star client.<\/p>\n

It won\u2019t be on the White House, but Makhachev vs. Topuria will almost actually happen within the near future. <\/p>\n

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Join Our Newsletter<\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Follow us on Google Discover Ilia Topuria shouldn’t be shocked to search out himself headlining the largest MMA card of 2026. The lightweight champion will face interim titleholder Justin Gaethje on the UFC White House event. Nevertheless, Ilia Topuria was expecting to unify the division by beating another person on June 14. Who’s the pound-for-pound […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":316246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21048],"tags":[1504,4136,1253,535,9713,14585,14586,8346,8737,479],"class_list":["post-316245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mma","tag-admits","tag-expected","tag-fight","tag-house","tag-ilia","tag-paddy","tag-pimblett","tag-surprised","tag-topuria","tag-white"],"aioseo_notices":[{"message":"The permalink for this post just changed! This could result in 404 errors for your site visitors.","status":"warning","options":{"id":"0a2ae5f84bc2c0423042ed7ec22d2e40","isDismissible":true,"actions":[{"url":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/wp-admin\/admin.php?page=aioseo-redirects","label":"Add Redirect to improve SEO","class":"aioseo-redirects-slug-changed"}]},"allowedContexts":["posts"]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316245"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":316248,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316245\/revisions\/316248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}