Paddy
Pimblett targets Renato
“Moicano” Carneiro next after his win over Bobby Green
at UFC 304.
Pimblett (22-3) choked Green (32-16-1, 1 NC) to sleep in the
opening round of their lightweight matchup in front of a home crowd
in Manchester, England. The Liverpudlian had a name ready when
given the opportunity to call someone out in his post-fight
Octagon interview: “Moicano.” Pimblett hopes to face the
Brazilian before the end of the year or early next year, provided
the fighter who also calls himself “Money” gets past his upcoming
opponent of Benoit St.
Denis at UFC Paris in September.
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“I have a name that everybody wants me to fight, Renato ‘Moicano,’”
Pimblett said. “Hopefully he gets through [Benoit St.
Denis]. We’ll see if we can set it up before the end of the
year or in the new year.”
Pimblett and Carneiro have been teasing a matchup for a while now,
with the Englishman having issued the initial callout. However,
Carneiro didn’t include Pimblett’s name while calling out opponents
following his knockout victory over Jalin
Turner at UFC 300.
More recently, both Carneiro and Pimblett verbally agreed to a
matchup at UFC 304 before they ended up getting booked against
different opponents. Pimblett revealed that he was originally
expecting to fight Carneiro in Manchester before the Green pairing
was announced. Likely to break into the UFC’s rankings with his win
over Green, Pimblett eyes the UFC’s no. 10 Carneiro as a lucrative
opportunity.
“The funny thing is, I’ll be honest, before this Bobby Green
fight got made, me and Renato were speaking about each other on
Twitter and stuff… He said, ‘I’ll fight Paddy,’ and I said I’ll
fight Renato. So, I’ll be honest, I thought that I’d end up
fighting Renato. Obviously, I’d rather jump straight to number 10
in the rankings than jump to 15,” the Brit concluded.