Paddy Pimblett wants Dan Hooker: “The toughest route to the title.”

Paddy Pimblett likes the idea of a fight with Dan Hooker.

After dropping four out of five a few years ago, ‘The Hangman’ is back in the lightweight top five after bagging his third-straight win at UFC 305. Following a couple of solid performances against Claudio Puelles and Jalin Turner, Hooker shocked everyone with a split-decision win over Mateusz Gamrot in Perth.

With a trio of noteworthy wins, Hooker finds himself back in contention. Of course, that also means the Auckland, New Zealand native now has an even bigger target on his back.

Pimblett, who recently broke into the lightweight top 15 with a first-round submission victory over King Green, likes the sound of a potential scrap with Hooker.

“Dan Hooker back in the top five, could be an interesting fight for me,” Pimblett said on his YouTube channel.

Dan Hooker claims a fight with Charles Oliveira could be next

If the UFC is looking to push Pimblett up the rankings right away, a fight with Hooker certainly looks like the most attractive option, but according to ‘The Hangman,’ it sounds like Dana White and Co have bigger plans for him.

Truth be told, Hooker isn’t really concerned with who’s next and he’s more than willing to take the path of least resistance if he means getting one step closer to UFC gold.

“Yeah, they want Charles, it’s a good fight but I mean there’s heaps of cool shit I could do, the lay of the land is pretty crazy and it’s such a wild sport so we’ll see how it plays out,” Hooker told TheMACLife.

“I couldn’t care less, (I want to fight) all of them bro, even Arman bro. I said to Hunter that I’d like to fight Arman because screw it, we’ll go the toughest route to the title that I possibly can, Turner, Gamrot, Arman, Islam, I just don’t care brother” (h/t BJPenn.com).