Paddy Pimblett is a bit of a darling of UFC and I think a lot of this has to do with his nationality. After the United States, the UK is the 2nd most lucrative market for MMA events and selling of pay-per-views. The issue that the UK faces is that they simply don't have enough talent to be terribly involved in the rankings.
I know that Ireland is not he UK but when McGregor was dominating the sport, all of a sudden massive amounts of European fans started coming out of the woodwork and became what are now, lifelong fans. With Conor fading the way that he has been and Leon Edwards not really being as much of a cash cow as the UFC might have hoped, the UFC really wants and needs a European and let's face facts, a Caucasian star.
Paddy Pimblett is both of those things and more. He also seems to be a genuinely good person as he advocates for men's mental health and this is something that an MMA fighter is an unlikely spokesperson for yet here we are.
He's a nice guy, he's good at the game, and his fights are generally interesting and entertaining. Now that being all said, I don't think that he is actually good enough to be the next big thing that it seems Dana White and company are pushing for.
He also kind of takes it upon himself to be an expert in the sport and frequently gives commentary on other fighters that he doesn't even have anything to do with.
“He shouldn’t be fighting at lightweight. He should’ve stuck at featherweight, and it’s gonna be the downfall of his career. I think he thinks he’s better than he is.
This is a Pimblett comment recently as he was talking about Ilia Topuria and how Ilia decided to vacate the featherweight belt and move to lightweight.
Topuria made the choice to vacate the championship because he is tired of cutting weight and this is something I can completely agree with. Cutting weight is fucking tough and it has resulted in pretty nasty things happening to many fighters in the past. Remember Johny Hendricks? yeah, not many other people do either.
I think that Pimblett is intentionally getting a lot of light shown in his direction because UFC really would like to have Europe, and more specifically the UK or Ireland, heavily represented in UFC. People like to cheer for their own nation's fighters and this is understandable.
Paddy the Baddie has 8 wins in his career but here's the thing. Most of these are victories over relative unknowns. Other than Tony Ferguson, I don't immediately recognize any of the people he has fought and even though the dude is a legend, defeating Tony Ferguson isn't exactly a huge accomplishment anymore. Tony hasn't won a fight since 2019 and that was against Donald Cerrone - a guy that I think basically everyone has beaten at least once.
Paddy certainly knows about cutting weight as that photo clearly proves. I"m not going to try to say that he isn't an expert in this sort of thing but I also don't think that he is some sort of phenom that is going to take over a division, let alone the entire game like Conor did. I know that that hope is there, but I honestly just dont' think that he is good enough, no matter how hard he trains. Either you have the killer instinct in you or you don't and I just don't see him rising to the top the way in which it appears that the UFC would like him to.
If Paddy is smart, and I believe he is, he is perhaps positioning himself for a commentary role the likes of which Michael Bisping has right now. Bisping is pulling down a cool $1.5 million a year from UFC alone and because of his screen time he can demand appearance fees and has sponsorships of all sorts. All of this can be yours Paddy without even risking horrible injury!
Perhaps that is what Paddy is looking for and I hope so. I like the guy, but I think that as soon as he starts to face actual top-brass opponents that he is goin to get destroyed. We're going to find out if I am correct on this as he is slated to face the wildly popular and very dangerous Michael Chandler in April!