Paddy Pimblett has agreed with UFC boss Dana White after he compared 'The Baddy' to former two-weight champion Conor McGregor.
Pimblett's rise in the UFC has drawn comparisons to McGregor's, with the Liverpudlian becoming one of the promotion's most popular fighters after just three fights. Pimblett, who submitted Jordan Leavitt at UFC London last month, boasts a massive 1.8million Instagram followers despite having his previous account deleted on the platform.
UFC boss White said of Pimblett after his latest win: "He’s got that Conor McGregor vibe. When he walks, when he’s in the arena, the way that the fans receive him, the way that the media covers him. The way that the people who search for content." White also cited the amount of views Pimblett's face-off with Leavitt received on his Instagram account as proof of his star power.
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Pimblett told reporters of White comparing him to McGregor: "He knows what he's talking about, he does, doesn't he? He's not wrong and he got me onto that, I actually went back and looked at the some of the [ Instagram ] reels because he mentioned 'look at the numbers' and I went and looked at the numbers. My reels were getting more than any of them. I told you, I'm the new kid on the block. I'm the new main man and the numbers reflect that."
For his first two UFC fights, Pimblett was guaranteed just £9,500 but he has since moved on from the controversial deal and is now earning "f***ing big money". The Liverpudlian signed a seven-figure deal as a brand ambassador and content creator for US media company Barstool Sports just two months after his debut win last September.
Pimblett's sidekick Molly 'Meatball' McCann will fight at UFC 281 in November, but Pimblett ruled himself out of fighting on the card because of the tax rate in New York. 'The Baddy' is targeting December as a return date, hopeful of competing on the planned UFC 282 pay-per-view event in Las Vegas.
"I think I'm going to fight in Vegas, that's what I'm hoping," he added. "I'm seeing the card getting slated for December 10th. Everyone wants to fight me because they've all got less than 100,000 followers and I've got 1.8 million or something like that. I'm also not a very scary dude so people think 'I can beat him' and then when you get in the cage with me and you've got to solve the puzzle, you can't."
