Paddy Pimblett Thrives in Chaos and We Haven’t Seen the Best of Him Yet, According to UFC Veteran
Dan Hardy thinks the best is yet to come from Paddy Pimblett.
After racking up seven straight wins inside the Octagon, ‘The Baddy’ will look to claim the biggest W of his career when he meets Justin Gaethje at UFC 324 for the interim lightweight championship.
Coming off wins over Bobby ‘King’ Green, Tony Ferguson, and Michael Chandler, some have suggested that Pimblett’s strength of schedule — or lack thereof — doesn’t deserve a title opportunity.
However, Hardy doesn’t necessarily see it that way and fully expects Pimblett to show up and show out in his toughest test yet.
“I love the trajectory Paddy’s got, the impact he’s had,” Hardy said in an interview with Submission Radio. “His brand arrived at the right time in the UFC. I don’t think we’ve seen the best version of Paddy yet, and that makes me excited to see what he does against Gaethje. Every time we see him, his striking has gotten noticeably better. Grappling is his main asset, but the work he did against Chandler in that first minute — beating up his lead leg and then stabbing the body with the front kick — that was a way more measured version of Paddy.
“We still saw him throw a flying knee and a jumping triangle. There’s still chaos in his game, and that’s one of the reasons he’s so effective. If you go back to his Cage Warriors days, he was all chaos – you were waiting on the edge of your seat for him to just go, then it was flying knees, and he was coming at you. Usually, it was the overwhelming style that exposed people’s backs, and that’s how he had so many quick finishes: making people scramble out of position and capitalizing. That’s where Paddy’s gameplan has to be — keep it MMA, force Gaethje to scramble.
“Even though Gaethje’s got really good takedown defense, create scrambles, creates opportunities to throw those knees, the flying knees. Paddy is so good at riding the crest of that chaotic wave he creates, and that’s where you find him on your back.”
A winner in three of his last four, Gaethje goes into Saturday’s title tilt well aware that this will likely be the last title shot of his career.
Will Gaethje break through and hand Pimblett the first loss of his UFC career, or will ‘The Baddy’ continue to show the world why he is the future face of MMA?
