Paddy Pimblett has been told that following Conor McGregor 's route to UFC stardom could work against him if he isn't ready to compete against the top fighters in his division.
Pimblett picked up his third successive UFC on Saturday by submitting Jordan Leavitt at UFC London. It marked Pimblett's second win in the English capital this year having also submitted Kazula Vargas at The O2 arena in March. 'The Baddy' insisted he will not fight again in the UK until the UFC visits Anfield Stadium and now plans to conquer America.
The Liverpudlian has become one of the UFC's biggest stars after just three fights in the promotion. His rise has drawn comparisons to former two-weight champion Conor McGregor, but UFC veteran turned analyst Dan Hardy thinks Pimblett should be wary of competing against the best lightweight fighters at this stage in his UFC stint.
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"You know McGregor was able to leapfrog a lot of queues because he was very marketable and Paddy does have that, but that can also work against him because he can get leapfrogged up the division before he's ready to," Hardy said on his YouTube channel. His best way of doing it is to manage his ability to talk his way into fights, and parlay that against fighting a whole bunch of people that are going to really be problems for him on the way up."
McGregor cleared out the featherweight division on his way to winning the undisputed title against Jose Aldo in 2015. In recent years the Irishman has failed to emulate the stellar performances he once showed in the octagon, with Pimblett promising to not suffer the same fate as McGregor following his meteoric rise in the UFC.
Hardy thinks Pimblett's star power has reached a level where the UFC could build an event around him despite 'The Baddy' being unranked at 155lb. Pimblett thinks his next fights will be taking place on pay-per-view events in the US but Hardy would like to see 'The Baddy' headline an event in Liverpool.
"I think you can pretty much build an event around him already," Hardy added. "You think about Conor McGregor when he fought [Diego] Brandao in Dublin, which was one of the wildest and chaotic events you could have ever gone to. I think if you put Paddy in an arena in or around Liverpool it would be absolute bedlam, Molly would be on the card as well."
