Paddy Pimblett and Ilia Topuria had to be separated at the UFC 282 pre-fight presser (Credits: MMA Junkie)
Paddy Pimblett and Ilia Topuria entangled in a heated exchange at UFC 282 press conference
During the press conference for UFC 282, Paddy Pimblett and Ilia Topuria were separated by security in order to prevent another altercation between the two of them from taking place.
In the past, the UFC competitors had brawled in the lobby of a hotel before each of their fights in London earlier this year. The Scouser apparently had made a joke about Russians “terrorizing Georgians’ lives,” Topuria was incensed by the remarks Pimblett made about Georgia, which is where Topuria was born and raised. During the exchange, Pimblett threw a hand sanitizer bottle off of Topuria’s head, which resulted in him nicknaming the fighter “hand sanitizer boy.”
At the press conference, Topuria elaborated on previous comments about being restrained from UFC security to protect Paddy in order to prevent a recurrence of their encounter in London. He stated, “He just quits when he sees me coming. You want to talk to me man to man, you said something about me and then I went to your country and slapped your face. I walked like a king in your city and what did you do?“
Pimblett returned fire by stating: “He hasn’t stopped tweeted about me all week, he needs to sort his life out. That little bum is irrelevant. I haven’t seen him all week the UFC have kept us apart, when I saw him last time he got a hand sanitiser bottle bounced off his fod. Little nit. Hand sanitiser boy. Nobody even knows his name, he’s known as hand sanitiser boy the little mongrel.“
‘The Baddy’ further added: “You pretend to be Georgian but you’re not. You were born in Germany and you live in Spain, you’re a little mongrel that’s what you are.”
Topuria issued a threatening reply by saying: “Shut up, if not I’m going to stand up and crush your face right here.“
Paddy Pimblett has earned the reputation of being overly candid and forthright, particularly when he expresses his opinions on various social media platforms. This has gotten him into trouble in the past on multiple occasions, and as a result, his account has been deleted on a few different occasions. When Pimblett encounters instances of cyberbullying or harsh commentary, he becomes incredibly frustrated. Because he stood up to the bullies and was open and honest about the situation, his account has been suspended more than once.
Paddy Pimblett, a star in the lightweight division of the UFC, has a sizeable following on social media, including millions of followers on Instagram; however, his Twitter account is suspended. Pimblett’s Instagram account is still active and boasts 2.3 million followers, despite the fact that he has been forced to close two other Instagram accounts.
Speaking in a recent episode of The Pub Talks, Pimblett stated:
“I’ve had two accounts disabled on Instagram for ‘bullying and harassment’ when it’s me who gets bullied and harassed. I just give it back. I’ve had two accounts, one with 187,000 followers got disabled. And my second account, it had nearly 900,000 followers and got disabled,” continued Pimblett. “I just can’t say nothing back. I have to be smarter with it.”
“I’m also banned on Twitter,” Pimblett .Just calling people stupid, fat idiots and stuff. You know what I mean? They give me grief and I’ve said something back. Because I’m in the public eye, people report my stuff and my account gets shut down.When I open Twitter, ‘your account is permanently suspended.’ It just comes up stating that, so I can’t like or comment to no one.”
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