MIAMI -- Paddy Pimblett is already one of the most popular fighters in the UFC. Now, he's knocking on the door of fighting for a championship as well.
Pimblett, 30, improved to 7-0 in the UFC with a TKO victory over Michael Chandler in the co-main event of UFC 314 on Saturday night at the Kaseya Center.\
The finish came at 3 minutes, 7 seconds of the third round after Pimblett moved to mount and dropped a series of 12-to-6 elbows. The ending sequence truly began at the start of the round, when Pimblett cut Chandler with a vicious knee to the head.
"This is how we win," Pimblett said in his postfight interview in the Octagon. "We gameplan, we use our fight IQ, and we beat motherf---ers up. Anyone else got any questions?"
Immediately after the win, Pimblett called out former lightweight champion Charles Oliveira, as well as Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje, both of whom were in attendance.
"Anyone in the top four, top five," Pimblett said. "I want that world title. [People said] I'll never be champ ... I'll never get ranked. I'll never be on the top 10. But what now? I won. Dustin, Justin, Charles or Arman [Tsarukyan] -- any of them.
"I respect Dustin, Justin and Charles. Charles is the biggest legend of them all, and he gets called the best submission artist the UFC's ever seen. But I dispute that. I'm here."
Chandler, who dropped to 1-4 in his past five fights, secured four takedowns, according to UFC Stats, including a couple of slams, but he failed to do much with them. He looked a little fatigued as early as the second round, which was probably due to some effective body work by Pimblett. Chandler accumulated only 2:44 of control time compared with 4:41 for Pimblett.
