Paddy Pimblett wants the world to know he’s doing just fine after a disappointing loss at UFC 324 that saw him get his face busted up.
One week ago, Pimblett lost his fight for the vacant interim lightweight
title against Justin Gaethje (highlights here). While “The Baddy” showed off how tough he could be and engaged in an on-the-feet war with “The Highlight,” the judges scored the fight for Gaethje 49-46, 49-46, and 48-47.
Paddy left the arena with massive swelling around both eyes, but that had more to do with accidental eye pokes than actual punches according to the Scouser.
“Everyone thought my face was a mess,” Pimblett said in a new YouTube video. “Listen, I’m only a week out from the fight, my face is sound. Got a little bit of bruising. The only thing that’s wrong with me is my eyeballs off fingernails scratching my eyeballs. But you know, we get on with it. I’ve had a nice little week chilling, was back lifting some weights, I’ll be back at Next Generation Gym tomorrow, Monday morning.”
“People are feeling sorry for me and this and that. But I’m great. In our sport you can’t win every fight. It’s one of them ‘You don’t lose, you learn,’ and I learned a lot from that fight already … I did say before the fight that I wanted the best version of Justin Gaethje and that Justin Gaethje turned up. So hats off to him, I hope he wins the undisputed title off Ilia, and hopefully we can run it back.”
Pimblett did admit his chances of getting another crack at Gaethje were low.
“I don’t think he’s got too many fights left,” Paddy said. “Hopefully we can run it back in the future because there’s a couple of things in that fight that pissed me off. But we get on with it. It’s done now. Nothing we can do. I know he’s on the ass end of his career, so if he does end up just fighting Ilia and Max [Holloway] or something and retiring, it’s one of them. I’ll have learned a lot from losing that fight.”
The key point that Pimblett wanted to make was that he wasn’t badly injured in the fight and would be returning to action soon.
“That was the next day, that was at it’s worst,” Pimblett said of viral photos his wife posted of his face. “I had big puffy eyes, but as you can see a week later there’s nothing wrong with me. The only thing is I have a scratched cornea or something like that.”
“People are thinking I’m going to have to take the rest of the year off,” he concluded. “I’m not. I’ll be fighting in the summer. Let’s see what lightweights win [at UFC 325].”
