Paddy Pimblett is not a fan of UFC 304’s early start time in the United Kingdom.
A sizable deal has been made about UFC’s upcoming pay-per-view (PPV) event and its timing. In America, nothing changes, as the event will kick off at its traditional 6:00 P.M. EST start time. However, the event will be held in Manchester, England, which means the very first fight of the night won’t be until 11:00 P.M. local time.
With the main card not starting until 3:00 A.M., that means Pimblett’s fight with King Green won’t start until roughly 4:00 A.M., and he doesn’t find that too fair.
“I’ll be fighting at about 4:00 A.M. It’s f*cking ridiculous,” Pimblett told Best Online Poker Sites. “In America, the main card starts at like 8:00 P.M., so I’d normally fight at about 9:00 or 10:00. It’s an advantage for the American fighters. It’s an advantage for Bobby Green, Belal Muhammad, and Curtis Blaydes because obviously, they’re coming over on their time. It’s not like they’re going to be jet-lagged. They’re going to just do the same but we’ve got to f*ck about with time frames and sh*t. It’s ridiculous.
“It really annoys me because the U.K. fans stay up every week to watch cards,” he continued. “It’s not even like they (American UFC fans) have to put a shift in because they’re eight hours behind. They can just take the day off work and base up like that while the sun’s out, have a f*cking barbecue. Instead, we’ve gotta sit up till f*cking 4:00, 5:00, 6:00 in the morning is, it’s a f*cking joke.”
A win over Green would land Pimblett in the top 15 of UFC’s Lightweight rankings with Green currently slotted in at No. 15. “The Baddy” is currently 5-0 in UFC (21-3 overall).
Remember that MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC 304 fight card right here, starting with the early ESPN+ “Prelims” matches online, which are scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. ET (simulcast on ESPN2 at 8 p.m. ET), before the pay-per-view (PPV) main card start time at 10 p.m. ET (also on ESPN+).
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