AT 21 YEARS OF age, Paddy Pimblett has got time on his side.
However, the new Cage Warriors featherweight champion isn’t waiting for opportunity to knock. In 2016, Pimblett has combined his ability in the cage with his colourful personality to become one of the most talked about young athletes in mixed martial arts.
But perhaps the most impressive thing about Pimblett’s rise has been his refusal to play it safe. Like every up-and-coming fighter, his ultimate goal is to be a contender in the UFC. With his desire to receive a contract from MMA’s largest organisation, Pimblett has opted to chase it by staying active instead of hoping that one lands on his lap.
At the turn of the year, Pimblett was on a five-fight win streak and held a professional record of 9-1. Those credentials made him a strong candidate for an offer of a short-notice debut from the UFC if a chance opened up on a European card. But Pimblett decided to use the return of Cage Warriors to launch his career in a way that the promotion has done for so many other fighters in the past.
The names Ashleigh Grimshaw, Teddy Violet and Johnny Frachey may not mean much to fans whose interest in MMA seldom extends beyond the UFC, but wins over three fighters of their calibre in the space of just five months — which is what Pimblett has accomplished — is as impressive a statement a featherweight on the European circuit can make.
Last weekend in his hometown of Liverpool, Pimblett stopped Frachey via TKO after just 95 seconds of their bout for the vacant featherweight title at Cage Warriors 78. The promotion’s 145lbs belt has been a ticket to the UFC in the past for its three most recent owners – Alex Enlund, Jim Alers and Conor McGregor — and Pimblett will surely continue that trend.
“It was inevitable, wasn’t it?” he told 4,000 captivated fans in the Echo Arena afterwards. Those who have extensively followed MMA in the United Kingdom know that the scenes of euphoria that greeted Pimblett’s victory are rare, but so too is the man who has vowed to do for the UK what Conor McGregor has done for Ireland.
“Paddy being himself is what makes him stand out from the crowd,” says Brad Wharton, a veteran UK MMA journalist and commentator for Cage Warriors. “In a sea of tattoos and shaved heads and scowl, he’s the floppy-haired Scouse lad you’ll bump into on holiday.
“He’s everyone’s best mate and that draws people in. If Irish fans invested in Conor McGregor as a proud warrior and cultural icon, Paddy is the guy we wished was our best pal. The people have bonded with him; that makes him stand out more than any particular skillset.
“Saturday in Liverpool was special. As much as I don’t want to keep referencing Conor, domestic MMA in Ireland or the UK hasn’t enjoyed an experience like that since he beat Ivan Buchinger in Dublin on New Year’s Eve in 2012. There were 4,000 people in the building last weekend, but 50,000 Scousers will be telling their mates that they were there in years to come.”
Having been dormant for a period of 18 months, Cage Warriors was faced with a difficult task to establish itself once again as one of Europe’s premier MMA platforms when it returned from an 18-month absence in April. But Pimblett has largely been responsible for the promotion’s successful rebuilding phase. Subsequently, comparisons have been made to Conor McGregor, who was the marquee star of Cage Warriors’ 2012-to-2014 heyday.
Pimblett is keen to point out that he’s not aiming to follow in McGregor’s footsteps, however. As a matter of fact, if Pimblett has his way, the pair may eventually cross paths.
“I’m not following him at all. He can leg it. I’ve wanted to be a two-weight world champion in the UFC since long before he was talking about it. That’s my ultimate goal. No one has set any example for me. I’m my own man. I know I’m capable of beating him,” Pimblett told The42 in July.
“Paddy represents the new wave of the type of athletes that are developing and coming of age right now. He has all the makings of a superstar,” says Graham Boylan, the CEO of Cage Warriors and Intensiti Fighter Management, to which Pimblett is signed.
“He’s bigger now than Conor McGregor was when he was with Cage Warriors. Cage Warriors has launched the careers of many top fighters but not all of them have attracted as much attention as him.
“Paddy looks like the complete opposite of what people perceive an MMA athlete to be. He has the boy next door looks, the camera loves him, but he can fight and he has a special relationship with the microphone. People love him, he’s got the X Factor.”
Pimblett’s boasts about a potential future bout with Conor McGregor might seem outlandish now, but the same was said in 2012 when McGregor articulated his plans to be the man to take down Jose Aldo. McGregor has taught young fighters to dream big.
Despite his impressive TKO of Johnny Frachey, Pimblett lacks the type of spectacular striking arsenal that has brought McGregor such unprecedented success. But he makes up for it by using his elastic frame to implement a dynamic brand of offensive grappling that has seen him take half of his 12 professional victories via submission inside two rounds.
When he made his Cage Warriors debut three years ago at the age of 18, Pimblett was the young kid from the Next Generation gym in Liverpool who tagged along with his more illustrious team-mates, such as UFC veteran Rosi Sexton, current UFC welterweight Danny Roberts and reigning Cage Warriors lightweight champion Chris Fishgold.
Now he’s the man who’s got MMA fans in the UK believing that they may finally have a young fighter who can drag the sport away from the periphery and into the eyes of the mainstream press, as Conor McGregor has managed to do in Ireland.
Veteran Michael Bisping has had some success on that front since becoming the UFC’s middleweight champion in June, but Pimblett is the kind of young star with a bright future who can turn token-gesture coverage into something the British media can’t afford to ignore.
“Perhaps the most exciting thing about him is that he’s still so young,” Brad Wharton explains. “The capacity for him to improve and evolve is tremendous compared to fighters getting their first sniff of interest from the UFC in their late 20s. He gets a little better every time and if that continues then he’ll go as far as he wants to.”
Pimblett’s youthful appearance hasn’t done him any harm either. He has admitted in the past that opponents have often taken him lightly because he looks more like the bass player in a teenage indie band — or Jay from the Inbetweeners, as he’s often reminded — than a champion mixed martial artist.
“People have always underestimated me because I look like a 12-year-old but they know all about the reality of it after they’ve fought me,” Pimblett said. “It doesn’t matter if I look like I’m 12 or 40. I’m still going to be the best in the world.”
It appears to be a matter of when, and not if, Pimblett makes the move to the UFC, as his predecessor as Cage Warriors featherweight champion, Alex Enlund, told Severe MMA in an interview last weekend: “He’s got a lot of time on his side. He’s really, really young in this game. That can work either way. He’s got a lot of fights.
“It’s not like he’s young and [also] inexperienced. But if it doesn’t happen, he does have time on his side. I don’t think it matters if it’s now. I do think it will happen for him. I think he’s got the skillset but he’s also got the personality, which sells.”
Having conquered the European circuit, the general consensus is that nothing other than a UFC debut will make sense as Pimblett’s next move. There, at the very highest level, he’ll have the opportunity to prove definitively that he really is as good as he’s been telling anyone within earshot.
“There will be some big news coming out next week about Paddy’s future. He’s a young lad with the world at his feet. He has big plans and we’ll help him to achieve them,” says Graham Boylan. Those around Pimblett appear to be equally as confident in his potential.
“I am going to be the pound-for-pound best in the world this time in five years,” the Cage Warriors featherweight champion claimed on Saturday night. Paddy Pimblett is far from the finished article, but he’s as close as it’s possible to get to it at the age of 21.
