Paddy Pimblett certainly made a strong statement when he entered the UFC with his activities both inside and outside the cage. He continued to put on good shows against opponents like Jordan Leavitt and also attracted many with his messages involving men’s mental health issues.
All was seemingly going well for the Englishman with getting invited to interviews, admiration from the fans and the benefits that come with such attention. But achieving fame and holding onto it are of course two entirely different ordeals and ‘The Baddy’ had to learn thus lesson the hard way.
His fight against Jared Gordon saw him put on a very poor show. It was almost unanimously believed that the Brit had lost the fight. But Paddy decided play along with the victory and proceeded to call any naysayers haters. Unfortunately fans were not having much of his nonsense and began to abandon the hype train in droves.
Meanwhile Paddy had started a rivalry with featherweight Ilia Topuria after making offensive statements about Georgian people. The two even got into an altercation in a hotel however, the situation couldn’t escalate owing to authorities stepping in. On the same card where Paddy ‘lost’ to Jared, Ilia picked up a dominating win against rising contender Bryce Mitchell.
Michael Bisping on Ilia Topuria vs Paddy Pimblett
Speaking on his podcast, Michael spoke on potential match ups for his fellow countryman, “I would say Paddy Pimblett, even though he’s too big for the O2 Arena now, he’s too big. One of the biggest events in the world, he’s too big. I would like to see Paddy versus, you know what, I love that Ilia Topuria fight, even though Topuria now fights at 145. They’ve got backstory, they’ve got beef, they’ve got sh*t, you know, so that will be a good one.”
Many believe that Ilia will simply run over Paddy. Evidences inside the Octagon also don’t suggest much great things about ‘The Baddy.’ Who do you think the lightweight should face for his next showdown?
