Dana White left UFC 329 with a sharper read on Paddy Pimblett than just another lightweight win. After Pimblett submitted Benoit Saint Denis in the co-main event, White said the whole walkout and performance felt like a champion-level arrival.
Pimblett had already put himself back in the title conversation by finishing Saint Denis with a first-round choke. White opened his post-fight media scrum by naming Pimblett as one of the performance bonus winners, then came back to him when asked whether the Liverpool fighter had moved to another level at UFC 329.
“Yeah, I think, I don’t know the way you guys, but he gained so much respect in that last fight,” White said. “Like my social team is telling me after that last loss, he gained like 2 million followers on social media, like from that night to the next morning.”
“And the way he came in tonight, it felt like he was the world champion,” White said. “And if you break this fight down, I felt like Saint Denis’s chance to win this fight was to keep it on his feet and strike, and then he shoots right in for a takedown. Very, very crazy. And what a nasty choke he put on him. It was incredible. Incredible performance for as short as it was.”
The clip is below:
“The way he came in, it’s like he was the world champion.”
Dana White has rave reviews for Paddy Pimblett after #UFC329. pic.twitter.com/LlOaPtopN0
— MMA Junkie (@MMAJunkie) July 12, 2026
The full post-fight press conference video is below:
Dana White Says UFC Will Wait Before Choosing Pimblett’s Next Fight
White did not jump straight into matchmaking, even with Pimblett’s star power climbing again. The question was obvious because Pimblett had just lost to Justin Gaethje before bouncing back, while also becoming one of the louder names attached to the post-McGregor lightweight picture.
“I have none right now,” White said when asked what comes next for Pimblett. “I have none. Yeah, I don’t know. I think about it over the weekend. And again, Tuesday we get in the room and we’ll talk about it. We’ll see what’s next.”
That answer keeps Pimblett in a flexible spot. He can be sold as the guy who just wrecked Saint Denis in under a minute, the same fighter who had already argued he could become one of the UFC’s new faces after Conor McGregor’s injury loss, and a lightweight who still has unfinished business with the elite tier after the Gaethje defeat.
The timing also matters because UFC 329 ended with McGregor losing to Max Holloway by injury TKO. Pimblett’s co-main event did not get swallowed by that strange ending. White specifically separated the performance, the entrance, the social-media jump, and the finish itself, which is why this praise carries more weight than a normal post-fight compliment.
Daniel Cormier also named Pimblett as his standout from the night while discussing the same event fallout, saying Pimblett deserved performance-of-the-night attention in his UFC 329 reaction video. White’s comments now put the promotion’s side of that story on record: Pimblett is not just back in the win column. He looked, to the UFC boss, like someone walking in with champion energy.
