UFC veteran Matt Brown doesn’t see Paddy Pimblett moving up the ranks in terms of competition.
A lot has been said about Paddy Pimblett’s UFC 282 performance against Jared Gordon over the weekend. Primarily, a majority of those who saw the fight disagree with the unanimous decision win he got from the judges.
To date, Gordon is deemed to be the toughest test for Pimblett’s budding superstardom. And since his recent victory has been put in question, there are some doubts about how the 27-year-old does as he moves forward in his career.
Veteran Matt Brown, for one, isn’t expecting “Paddy the Baddy” to do well if he gets a step up in competition.
“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,” he said on a recent episode of MMA Fighting.com’s The Writer vs. The Fighter.
“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.
“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. If you move him up, he’s going to get f–ng molly-whopped.”
For Brown, fighting is merely a “hobby” for Pimblett, who is also infamously known for ballooning in weight during his off-season and cutting back down to 155 pounds, seemingly with relative ease.
“He’s a professional social media guy, his hobby is fighting. 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.
“What I’m getting at, is I wouldn’t expect him to say anything different publicly. 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–ng shit he’s famous on.
“He searches deep within himself and makes some changes. He’s going to have to decide if 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?’”
Pimblett’s highly-questioned win on Saturday nonetheless puts him on a six-fight win streak (4-0 in the UFC) as he improves to a record of 20-3.