Jared Gordon is still trying to come to terms with the loss to Paddy Pimblett at UFC 282. He is struggling to understand how the fight ended with a loss on his record, and is working to move past the defeat. Despite the setback, Gordon remains committed to improving as a fighter and learning from the experience.
Despite being widely considered the winner of the fight, Jared Gordon was disappointed to hear the judges’ scorecards all read 29-28 in his opponent’s favor. The decision came as a shock to Gordon, who was visibly dejected when it was announced. Even now, days after the fight, he is still trying to understand what happened and come to terms with the defeat. Despite the setback, Gordon remains determined to continue improving as a fighter and learn from the experience.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Gordon said. “I’m devastated. But there’s nothing I can do obviously. We’ll see what comes with it.” h/t MMAFighting
Despite being considered the underdog going into the fight, Jared Gordon controlled most of the exchanges with Paddy Pimblett. He consistently landed combinations, particularly a left hook that found its target nearly every time. Pimblett did manage to land some strikes of his own, but Gordon usually came out on top in the exchanges during the first two rounds.
In the third round, the pace of the fight slowed as Gordon pressed Pimblett against the cage and attempted to take him down. Gordon does not make excuses for his performance in the final minutes of the fight, but it turns out he was slightly hindered by an injury sustained earlier.
“I really hurt my ankle in the first round. Bad,” Gordon revealed. “I was still throwing kicks, but by the time the third round came, it hurt a lot to push off of it and to be on it. I knew I was better everywhere. I reversed his takedowns. Took him down. Better control time. Better in the clinch against the fence. My punches landed cleaner and better. I was landing really good leg kicks. I figured it could go three rounds. I wish I could have done a couple of things differently, especially in the third round but I thought I won every round.
“He said he coasted in the third round, and in my head, I won the first two rounds, I’m winning this round, let’s not play it stupid so let me just do what I’m doing on the cage, I’m going for the takedown. I had his back for a little bit standing. When you’re in there, it’s a lot different than when you watch it from outside the cage but I thought I had won. But obviously there was different plans.”
Jared Gordon revealed that the ankle injury he sustained during the fight with Paddy Pimblett occurred from leg kicks he threw early in the fight. These kicks landed on Pimblett’s calf and shin bone, and exacerbated a previous injury that Gordon had sustained in a fight with Grant Dawson. This previous injury had not been serious enough to require more than physical therapy.
“It was hard for me to bounce around on it,” Gordon said. “It’s my right ankle so it’s my back foot so that’s where my power’s coming from. It is what it is. You get hurt in fights obviously.
“I thought I was winning there. I was controlling him. I was landing knees. I was trying to take him down. I was going up, I was going down, I was changing levels. It’s not like I was just holding him. I was trying to take him down.”
Despite his injury, Jared Gordon still believed that he had done enough to win the fight, and watching it again only reinforced this belief. Regardless of the ankle injury, he remained convinced that he had performed well enough to earn the victory.
“When I watched the fight back, I was like I won every round,” Gordon said. “I believe 99.9 percent of the world thinks I won, too. It’s not like it could have gone either way. No, I clearly won. But Doug Crosby is blind or something and I know the other guys had it going the other way, too, but I don’t know how anybody could have given him all the rounds. It’s impossible.”
Jared Gordon is puzzled by the judges’ decision in his fight against Paddy Pimblett. The judges, Doug Crosby, Ron McCarthy, and Chris Lee, only awarded the second round to Pimblett unanimously, with the first and third rounds being split between the officials. In Gordon’s view, he should have won all three rounds, or at the very least, received a unanimous 29-28 result in his favor. In the end, he lost, and he is still trying to make sense of it.
“It’s probably one of the worst decisions ever,” Gordon said. “It’s got to be top three worst decisions ever in UFC history, I would imagine at this point. I lost out on a lot of opportunity. Money, I lost out on a couple of sponsors that were in the works that I haven’t heard about yet since the fight. A loss on my record. What do they do with me now?
“It’s so fresh still so I’ve got to see how it all pans out. I’ve got so much stuff going through my head. One moment, I’m like this isn’t that bad. The next moment, I’m devastated. I’m like all right, I should be grateful, I fell all right. Then I think about everything and then I’m devastated again. It’s sad. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to think anymore. I lost out on a lot. But whatever, I believe most of the world knows who the real winner was.”
Gordan Wants a Rematch
Jared Gordon is eager to have a rematch with Paddy Pimblett, with the goal of providing a clear-cut winner. He is willing to travel to Pimblett’s home country to make the fight happen, and is hoping to avoid the controversy that surrounded their previous encounter. Gordon believes that a rematch is the best way to definitively determine who is the superior fighter.
“The only thing that I think makes sense is a rematch, and I’ll go to London to fight him,” Gordon said. “I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. I’m super bitter right now, obviously, it’s been three days and I can’t see the silver lining yet but there obviously is one but it’s going to take some time to become apparent.
“If he thinks he’s going to get into the top 15 or top 10, he’s going to need more experience before that. Everyone in the top 15 is a straight savage. If he can overcome two fights with me, maybe he’s ready but so far he lost the first fight. So it only makes sense to see where he’s really at and do it again. I think it just makes sense, especially for where he’s at in his career and the experience he has. He couldn’t get past me. It would be great for me, too, obviously and I want it back.
In the event that they run it back again, do you think Gordon will be able to win easily?
