Paddy Pimblett, despite only having 1 fight in the UFC, is one of the most talked about fighters in the sport. He has everything the UFC is looking for. He brings his own fan base from the UK in a way that I can only compare to Conor McGregor. Now, nothing for as long as this sport exists will compare to the rise of Conor McGregor and the way the Irish fans were behind him before he even made his way to the UFC, but it has a similar feel, just not to that extent. After a banger of a debut that saw him knock out Luigi Vendramini in the first round after Vendramini had Paddy hurt earlier in that fight. The exciting nature of his performances only adds to the star power that Paddy holds so early in his career. Everyone has been sitting and waiting for the announcement of Paddy's next opponent for awhile now. Ever since the rumors of the UFC's return to the UK on March 19 started circulating, everyone targeted that date for Paddy's next appearance. That date has since been confirmed to be in London and we know Paddy will also be on the card. There has been some contention around who would be standing across the cage from Paddy and that's what I want to talk about here.
I can't say for sure what order potential opponents started to leak, but I'll be telling the story as I experienced it. From my perspective, I heard about the London card and that Paddy would be on it before there was any mention of a potential opponent. The first I had heard about any matchup was when Chael Sonnen mentioned Donald Cerrone as someone who was interested in getting that fight. I'm not always the biggest fan of feeding the aging fighters to the young, hungry ones, but I thought this made sense in a lot of ways. These are fighters who, while trending in opposite directions, are probably on relatively similar playing fields at the moment. Paddy showed why he has the makings of a star in his debut, but he also showed some of his flaws as well. Cowboy isn't exactly his prime self anymore, but he still has shown plenty of skills and, of course, is always game to fight. This would also be a fight that the UFC could promote as a potential co-main event for that card as well. With Leon Edwards in line for a title shot and Darren Till recovering from injury, two of the UK's biggest stars were unavailable for the headlining spot. We know now that Tom Aspinall will be in the main event, but Paddy vs Cowboy would get a huge pop as a co-main for a big card. It also made sense as this is the exact type of fight that the UFC makes all the time. The UFC loves to build new stars off of the names of their older stars right before they leave the sport. This would be the perfect opportunity as Cowboy walks away from the sport to use his name to springboard Paddy to future stardom, as if he even needs it. A win over Cowboy Cerrone would be a great win on Paddy's resume and it would come so early in his UFC run. We know the UFC would want it, it makes sense that Paddy would want it, and it also makes sense that Cowboy would want this fight. He's been in the biggest spots and fought the biggest names in the sport for the better part of the last 20 years. Cowboy doesn't want to go out fighting some random fighter to open a fight night card. He wants big and interesting fights still and at this point in his career, the Paddy fight is probably one of the biggest he could realistically get. He would have the chance to prove himself one more time against someone who is being billed as the next big thing. When Chael mentioned this in his video, I got excited. It seemed so real and made so much sense for everyone involved. It seemed like a foregone conclusion that this fight would get made in my mind.
However, of all people, Paddy Pimblett came out and immediately rejected the idea. Not only did he reject the idea of fighting Cowboy, he used this chance to make a call out of... Jared Gordon? I mean, ok then. Now, I mean no disrespect to Jared Gordon. If you don't know his story, I encourage to look it up because it is truly inspirational. Gordon has overcome addiction to get to his place in the UFC, which has presented varying degrees of success since he entered the promotion in 2017, including his current 3 fight win streak. Gordon typically relies on his wrestling and ground control game, which he does very well. Unfortunately for him, it doesn't get him a ton of fans because it isn't the most exciting style to watch, but it is effective nonetheless. While it really isn't the most interesting fight on paper, it genuinely seemed like both men wanted to fight each other, so I could get behind that. To whatever degree there was some excitement between those two to fight, then I was at least looking forward to it, despite it not being the matchup I wanted. I had held out hope that maybe the Cowboy fight would still happen, but a couple of weeks ago, Dana White said Gordon would be Paddy's next opponent in an interview with Barstool. While I was still a little disappointed, I still found myself excited that Paddy was on the schedule because I want to see him fight rather frequently if possible. I accepted that Gordon would be the opponent and just moved on with my life.
However, out of nowhere, Jared Gordon just wasn't the opponent anymore and the real opponent was more uninspiring. I don't view Gordon as someone who is a future champion or contender, but I still have tremendous respect for him. No one is in the UFC for 5+ years on accident. A 6-3 record in the best MMA promotion in the world is nothing to sneeze at. We went from an exciting rumor in Cowboy to an acceptable opponent in Gordon and then the actual opponent is... Rodrigo Vargas. Now, I'm a pretty big MMA fan, but when I first saw this, I didn't immediately know who he was. When I looked him up, I saw the illegal knee against Brok Weaver and I do remember that, but, that's honestly about it. He's 1-2 in the UFC and, in my estimation, his best win came against Jordan Williams. If you don't know who Williams is, he was on contender series and he secured a first round knockout and immediately started screaming and demanding a contract. He go that contract and used all of that excitement and arrogance and parlayed it to an 0-3 start in the UFC including being finished in the first round in consecutive fights. Anyways, apparently Rodrigo Vargas in the opponent for Paddy Pimblett. This is so uninspiring to me. Everyone wants to see Paddy fight and to put him in there with someone who is unknown to even die hard MMA fans is a huge miss in my opinion. Like I said before, Paddy is both young and flawed. I don't want to see him fight someone in the rankings or really even close. However, someone with so little name value seems a little odd to me. I would have liked to have seen him get tested against someone who is more of a known commodity. If not Cowboy Cerrone, Michael Johnson sounds like the type of opponent that could have been interesting. Names like Jeremy Stephens, Marc Diakiese, and even Clay Guida would have been so much fun. Maybe those are biting off more than he can chew, but they're all really fun. I just think giving Paddy and unknown opponent misses a huge opportunity to build him. What does a win over Rodrigo Vargas do for him? Vargas has fewer career professional fights than Paddy does.
This isn't really a post that has an actual conclusion or right answer, but just a conversation piece. What do you guys think? Is this what you wanted for Paddy Pimblett's next fight? Would Cowboy Cerrone have been a better fight? What about Jared Gordon? Is there someone I didn't name that you want him to fight? Leave any and all thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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