a heated exchange<\/a> led to Topuria shoving the eighth-ranked contender and igniting a rivalry from years ago.<\/p>\n\u201cLet\u2019s (expletive) fight! If you\u2019re ready, I\u2019m here,\u201d Topuria said to Pimblett before he entered the ring.<\/p>\n
White wasn\u2019t happy with Pimblett getting in the ring, knowing the history of bad blood between the two.<\/p>\n
The pair have been at odds for some time, after they came to blows when Pimblett threw a bottle of hand sanitizer at Topuria\u2019s head in 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a heavy knockout, I\u2019ll give you that,\u201d Pimblett said to Topuria. \u201cBut you will never knock me out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Replied Topuria: \u201cI\u2019m going to submit you.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the co-main event, flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja (30-5) successfully defended his belt by applying a rear-naked chokehold to defeat Kai Kara-France (25-12) at the 1:55 mark of the third round.<\/p>\n
It marked the second time the fighters met, nine years after their quarterfinal clash on the reality show \u201cThe Ultimate Fighter,\u201d also won by Pantoja, but by unanimous decision.<\/p>\n
Pantoja, who closed a -250 favorite and extended his win streak to eight fights, won the title two years ago when he beat Brandon Moreno by decision, and has now defended his title successfully four times.<\/p>\n
The 35-year-old Brazilian was joined in the ring after his victory by No. 12 Joshua Van, who put on a show of his own.<\/p>\n
Van (15-2-0) defeated No. 1 contender Brandon Royval (17-8-0) in a slugfest in which both fighters displayed incredible boxing skills. Van, who closed a -120 favorite, used an overhand right to drop Royval before closing out the bout with a severe ground-and-pound to secure the unanimous decision.<\/p>\n
The 419 combined significant strikes landed were the third most in a UFC fight, and the most in both a three-round bout and a featherweight clash.<\/p>\n
Moments after Pantoja\u2019s win, Van challenged Pantoja with both standing nose to nose before exiting the octagon.<\/p>\n
Other matches from the main card:<\/p>\n
In a lightweight bout, No. 9 Beneil Dariush (23-6-1) survived a first-round knockdown to defeat No. 11 Renato Moicano (20-7-1) via unanimous decision.<\/p>\n
In a bantamweight battle, Payton Talbott (10-1-0) used a much-improved ground game to register a unanimous decision over Felipe Lima (14-2-0).<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP sports: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/sports<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS (AP) \u2014 Ilia Topuria continued his ascension up the pound-for-pound ladder with a major statement via…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[21258,21354,21957,21959,21256,5191,21953,10104,4353,21257,21956,21958,21681,617,11290,21955,21954,21952,62,21951,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-24424","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-alexandre-pantoja","9":"tag-boxing","10":"tag-brandon-moreno","11":"tag-brandon-royval","12":"tag-charles-oliveira","13":"tag-dana-white","14":"tag-felipe-lima","15":"tag-ga-state-wire","16":"tag-georgia","17":"tag-ilia-topuria","18":"tag-joshua-van","19":"tag-max-holloway","20":"tag-mixed-martial-arts","21":"tag-nevada","22":"tag-nv-state-wire","23":"tag-paddy-pimblett","24":"tag-payton-talbott","25":"tag-renato-moicano","26":"tag-sports","27":"tag-trending-news","28":"tag-united-states","29":"tag-unitedstates","30":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114766542646351939","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}