DUBAI – Javier Mendez sees Usman Nurmagomedov needing just one UFC win to be title ready.
PFL lightweight champion Nurmagomedov (22-0) is currently in his negotiations period after fighting out his contract with a knock out of Archie Colgan at PFL New York in July.
If Nurmagomedov does end up signing with the UFC, Mendez likes the idea of a matchup against a former interim title challenger.
"I would love Paddy 'The Baddy' (Pimblett). I would love Paddy because I love that character that he is," Mendez told MMA Junkie. "He's a great character. I think it would be a fun fight for the fans. I think if that was to happen, that's great."
Mendez thinks an immediate title shot would be a bad idea since the undefeated phenom would need to shake off any potential jitters from the big stage. However, skill for skill, he sees Nurmagomedov getting the best of everyone – with former UFC champion Ilia Topuria (17-1 MMA, 9-1 UFC) giving him the sternest test despite his title loss to Justin Gaethje.
"In my opinion, Usman matches well with every one of those guys, and he surpasses all of them because he's better all the way around than all of them," Mendez said. "And I'm being biased. If you want to think that, go ahead, but that's my opinion. He gets the better of them all the way around, all the lightweights. The only one that would give him the biggest challenge would be the guy that moved up to welterweight, his teammate (Islam Makhachev). Other than that, I'm sorry. ... The toughest guy for us, in my opinion, Topuria. He's by far the most dangerous one, and the one we'd have to really be careful with because he's a beast. They're all beasts, don't get me wrong, but if I'm doing stylistically, who's going to be the guy that I would be, 'Don't blink,' Topuria. And we're yet to see how he's going to come out, but I think he's going to come out blazing. He's going to come out blazing because he's had time to sit on what happened and he's such a great athlete, such a great marketer, that Topuria is going to come back super, super strong.
"So whoever faces him, they better be ready because if they're not ready, things are going to go bad. You cannot discount how great he did, and what he was doing on his way up. You cannot. To say after a situation like that, come on, man. It's like right away, he got his eyes busted up. He couldn't even see. So that's something he's not used to. He fought a lot of demons in that fight, a lot of demons, and that fight is the only fight in the history of my viewing, I watched now eight times. I've watched that fight eight times. I've never watched any fight eight times because it wasn't clear-cut who was winning. It was like Topuria's kicking his butt, Gaethje is kicking his butt. Topuria's kicking his butt, Gaethje's kicking his butt. It was like, go like this. Watch that fight – it was unbelievable. That fight is my greatest fight of all time to watch as a fan. That fight was amazing, and as a matter of fact, I'm thinking I might go nine times and watch that fight."
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Javier Mendez would love Usman Nurmagomedov's UFC debut to be vs. Paddy Pimblett