Paddy Pimblett has put Conor McGregor at the top of his wish list, saying the fight he wants most is a welterweight bout in MSG if both men win at UFC 329. Pimblett said he would like the matchup before McGregor retires, then added that if he and McGregor both get through their July 11 fights, he wants to run it back before the end of the year.
The timing matters because McGregor is scheduled to return against Max Holloway atop UFC 329 in Las Vegas, while Pimblett meets Benoit Saint Denis in the Paramount+ co-main event. That puts the two men on the same card and gives Pimblett a direct path to the biggest name in the sport, but only if he handles his own business first. McGregor beat Holloway by unanimous decision in Boston in Aug. 2013, and the rematch would arrive more than a decade later with both men in very different places.
Pimblett has not exactly been talking like a man trying to disappear quietly into the rankings. He said he won seven fights in a row before his last bout, and argued that his stock rose even after he lost to Justin Gaethje in a five-round war. The logic is simple enough: he took punishment against a legend, but also came out of it with more attention than he got after beating Michael Chandler, Bobby Green and Tony Ferguson. That is the friction in his pitch. He wants back in the win column, yet he also believes the loss made him a bigger name.
That mindset helps explain why he sees Saint Denis as a useful step and not just a hurdle. Pimblett said Saint Denis moved ahead of him in the rankings after beating Dan Hooker, putting Pimblett at six and Saint Denis at five. He said he is better than Saint Denis everywhere the fight goes and called the matchup the right one for July 11. Win that, and the McGregor talk stops sounding like fantasy and starts sounding like a booking the UFC can actually sell.
Pimblett went further, saying this could be the most watched UFC of all time and that McGregor would be the star of the show while he would likely be second. That is the scale of what is at stake now. If McGregor beats Holloway and Pimblett beats Saint Denis, the path to a late-year welterweight meeting is open. If either man slips, the biggest fight Pimblett wants may have to wait.
