Did Paddy Pimblett really spend over $18,000 to buy the stool that Ilia Topuria sat on at UFC Freedom 250?
“The Baddy” recently made some posts on social media suggesting he’d bought the red corner stool that Topuria was sitting on when his corner waved off his White House fight against Justin Gaethje. The stool was part of a larger collection of items from the White House event that were going for big bucks on the UFC Collectibles website and quickly became known as “The stool Topuria quit on” to haters.
Paddy Pimblett is the king of Topuria haters, so it wouldn’t be surprising to us if he really did shell out over eighteen grand U.S. dollars to buy the stool. That’s a small price to pay for the interest and headlines it would generate as Pimblett pushes for a fight against the 17-1 former lightweight champion. The only problem? Pimblett wasn’t the one who won the auction. A fan named Jessica went online to debunk Paddy’s claims, and she literally brought receipts.
“It’s me, I bought it, not Paddy, not anybody else,” she said in a video. “Big Ilia fan and I kinda purchased it on purpose so that Paddy or anyone else couldn’t buy it and use it against him, but here we are.”
Here we are, indeed. A few months ago, people were laughing at the idea of Ilia Topuria and Paddy Pimblett fighting. Topuria was undefeated and on a historic run, winning the featherweight title and then the lightweight title with easy knockout wins over the top athletes in the sport. Pimblett had just lost to Justin Gaethje, who was obviously next to get knocked out by Topuria at UFC Freedom 250.
Then the White House card happened and Gaethje hammered Topuria into the dirt. UFC 329 followed that and saw Pimblett submit Benoit Saint-Denis in under a minute with an extremely slick move now dubbed ‘the Pad-tie.’ Pimblett and Topuria’s paths are right back in line, and the UFC would be stupid not to jump on this rare opportunity to make the fight while it makes competitive sense.
Pimblett says Topuria is undersized at lightweight and won’t be able to put him away. Topuria will be returning from two fractured orbitals and a broken nose. It all resonates a lot more than it did at the start of 2026. But if Paddy happens to bust out the red stool again, know that he’s using a fake prop because Ilia superfan Jessica has the real one.
