- Matt Brown heavily criticized Paddy Pimblett’s rise in the UFC
- “The Immortal” thinks “The Baddy” wouldn’t stand a chance against a ranked opponent
Despite still having doubters, UFC lightweight rising star Paddy Pimblett’s stock is undeniably rising. However, his controversial unanimous decision win over Jared Gordon at UFC 282 opened the door for critics, including UFC stalwart Matt Brown.
Paddy needs to self-reflect
According to Brown, Pimblett was finally exposed at UFC 282 and it should be proof that he’s far from the wonderboy people thought he has been. After the Gordon fight, “The Immortal” is certain “The Baddy” needs to improve a lot in his arsenal.
“So many things in his game are so far behind that he almost has to go back to the drawing board and start from scratch, and go back to Cage Warriors and try again almost,” Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer h/t MMA Fighting. “Because he’s in the snake pit now — if they move him up. I don’t think they’re going to move him up. I think after that performance, he’s going to stay down fighting in the 20 to 30 [ranked] guys, maybe even lower than that. He’s going to have a very hard time.”
Pimblett insisted that he outright beat Gordon and boasted that it wasn’t even close. Ben Askren loved it, even though he thinks “The Baddy” lost, but Brown certainly didn’t.
“He’s a professional social media guy, his hobby is fighting,” Brown continued. “What else would he say? He doesn’t have a real answer for it. Of course he’s going to go ahead and go with the narrative that he won. If he admits defeat, it makes him look worse. It makes us sit here and talk about it more. That’s all he really wants. He wants more clicks, he wants more views. He’s a social media professional. He’s an amateur fighter.”
Brown also gave Pimblett some unsolicited advice and suggested that the Liverpool native should self-reflect if he’s serious about his career.
“What I’m getting at, I wouldn’t expect him to say anything different publicly,” he added. “The only way he’s going to improve is if he goes back and does some soul searching in his room by himself, not on social media, not on YouTube. Not on whatever TikTok f****** s*** he’s famous on. He searches deep within himself and makes some changes. He’s going to have to decide this is what he wants. He’s going to have to say, ‘Do I want to be a social media superstar or do I want to be a fighter?’”
The Immortal refused to believe the hype
UFC president Dana White said Pimblett’s numbers as far as fan interest and engagement go were undeniable. Brown acknowledges the hype of “The Baddy” but stressed that there’s nothing great about him apart from that.
“I don’t know why people like this guy. I don’t get it,” Brown exclaimed. “Maybe I’m a f****** old grump. Maybe I’m an old man. Maybe I’m a boomer. Call me what you want but I don’t get the personality hype that everyone likes about him. But people do, so good for him. He’s going to have to capitalize on that the best he can. That’s what it seems like he’s doing. But he’s not going to do it based on his performances in the octagon.”
He continued:
“They’re probably going to move him down, in my opinion. That’s the move if you’re trying to keep Paddy alive and keep utilizing his hype for the UFC machine.”
Looking at the current UFC lightweight rankings, Renato Moicano appears to be the most sensible fight to make if the UFC decides to match Pimblett with a ranked opponent as the 14th spot belongs to Conor McGregor and the 15th is Tony Ferguson. However, Brown thinks that “The Baddy” would still be obliterated by Moicano even the latter doesn’t train.
“If you move him up, he’s going to get f****** molly-whopped,” Brown said of Pimblett. “[Renato] Moicano doesn’t even have to train for that fight. His last fight he came in on short notice. He literally doesn’t even have to train and he beats Paddy any way that he wants. Paddy has a tough road ahead of him.”
“He’s got the social media brand and that’s all there is to it,” he continued. “He’s got the social media brand, he’s not going to be a world-class fighter. He’s not going to be a top-10 guy.”
Biting more than he could chew
UFC 282 was Pimblett’s first co-headliner event. Brown speculated that with the arrogance of “The Baddy,” he’ll refuse to be placed anywhere lower than a co-main event but in reality, there’s not a lot of fighters out there that he can beat.
“Let me be clear, I don’t think Paddy has a lot of guys in the UFC that he beats left,” Brown assessed. “Unless he goes like way down and fights the debuting guys and bring in guys for him to [beat] or they know match up terribly with him, things like that.”
“Paddy was co-main event. If they’re going to put him at co-main event again, he doesn’t want to go down on the slot, he wants to stay at least co-main event or main event, he’s got to fight somebody with at least enough name for that to make sense. If he fights somebody with enough name, there’s nobody out there for him to beat. You can go down the whole list of every lightweight. There’s nobody for him to beat I don’t think,” he continued.
Pimblett is still unbeaten in the UFC, having gone on a four-fight winning streak. It will be interesting to see if the UFC was convinced with his latest performance and match him against a ranked opponent next.
