Paul Felder känner sig redo för den stora scenen efter sin seger mot Edson Barboza på UFC 242. När den 34-årige Roufussport-fightern pratade med Petesy Carroll på MMA fightings Eurobash podcast om vem han vill möta härnäst, började han med att nämna Conor McGregor.
“Fight [Conor McGregor]? I wouldn’t mind it,”
“I like making money—plus he’s up there. He’s got numbers next to his name that I want to take. If you wanna talk about that fight, you know it’s going to be goddamn striking battle with me. And Conor is obviously not going to be trying to take me down either. But I’m also not one of those people that’s going to play his game and beg for something like that. If I know that I’m not the guy that’s going to get it, I’m not going to go crazy trying to get it. But I would absolutely love to throw down with him.”
Förutom McGregor nämnde ”The Irish Dragon” två andra namn som alla är i topp 5 i divisionen.
“Me and Al [Iaquinta] still have unfinished business. I love that guy, he’s awesome, but if he beats Dan Hooker, I think that’s a great matchup,”
“Obviously, I want to fight Justin Gaethje some day, and I feel like he’s really deserving of a big fight moving forward. I’m not fighting [Donald] ‘Cowboy’ [Cerrone], so it’s very limited in terms of who is ahead of me, so we’ll see what happens from here. I don’t know, we’ll see. I’m curious to see what happens to be honest with you.”
Felder vet också att enda vägen till Khabib Nurmagomedov och bältet är genom någon av dessa herrar eller Dustin Poirier.
“I would say Justin Gaethje or Dustin Poirier [are my ideal next opponents] – Dustin because he just fought for the belt,”
“If I can jump the line and skip ahead like that—I mean, sh*t. And he’s a great striker, a great boxer. That lends itself to the kind of fights that I’m used to being in and one that the fans want. Whatever happens, we’re probably getting a bonus. It would be one of those fights that goes back and forth. [It would come down to] who’s tougher and who can take the bigger shots, and those are the fights that turn me on.”
Vi får se vem nästa man på tur blir för Felder, det finns ju också en chans att UFC vill köra en returmatch med Barboza då domslutet anses vara rätt kontroversiellt.
