Jared Gordon isn’t too disappointed with his performance against Paddy Pimblett, UFC 282, although he would have liked for the third round to be a little different.
After a solid showing in the opening two rounds, Gordon decided to push Pimblett to the cage and work from the corner looking for takedowns, rather than trying to outstrike him as he did for the majority of the fight.
It turns out Gordon was nursing a painful injured ankle that restricted his ability to move in the third round. He decided to change his tactics in the final five minutes. That strategy led to UFC President Dana White to say Gordon had a “horrible game plan” and that he “threw the fight away” in the third round; Gordon ultimately lost a very controversial unanimous decision.
“I was upset, but you know what, that was one of the things that I regretted — not going for it a little more,” Gordon said of White’s comments in an interview with MMA Fighting. “I was winning on the feet, so I should have just stayed there, and maybe my ankle would have been all right moving around. But it started really stiffening up on me and hurting.
“I was like all right, I’ve got him against the cage, I’m winning here, I’m going to get the takedown, and I went for it. He was trying to defend it well, but it was hard. If I had fought harder on my feet, I might have won .”
White didn’t have much to say about Pimblett that night. But Gordon certainly heard plenty about his decision to slow down the pace while attempting to grind out the win.
Although it hurts to know that White was dissatisfied with the outcome of the fight, Gordon now understands White’s situation after the two-rounds of a tense battle.
” I don’t think Dana said that. I did great in my first two feet rounds, so if I could get the same round in round three, I might be able to make a split decision,” Gordon stated. “It is one of the things I regret, so I don’t blame him for saying that.
” While it is annoying to hear Dana speak that way, I don’t blame him. I believe he has some part of the truth. I’m not mad.”
Perhaps the oddest part about White’s issue with Gordon’s strategy was that two of the judges — Doug Crosby and Ron McCarthy — actually had him winning the third round. It was the scoring through the first two rounds that cost Gordon the fight.
Regardless, Gordon doesn’t really see how anyone could give Pimblett the third round based on the very little offense he produced while spending the majority of the time with his back against the cage.
“None of it really makes sense when you look at it from either perspective,” Gordon said. “The one thing that is annoying, ‘Well, Jared threw the third round.’ Paddy did nothing in the third round besides the last 20 seconds he got a decent position. After four 30 minutes of me holding him on the fence, beating him up and trying to get a takedown, he just sat there and did some elbows.
“He did not do anything in the third round. If anything, I did a lot more in the third round than he did – but can’t change the past.”
Given the backlash against the UFC decision, Gordon hopes that the UFC might allow him to rematch with Pimblett. He will have to put aside the fight for now.
“Unfortunately, I’ve got to accept the things I can’t change and move forward,” Gordon said. “It’s just really hard for me to do right now. It’s super fresh, and maybe in like a week or two I’ll feel different.”
Source: https://www.mmafighting.com/2022/12/15/23509999/jared-gordon-responds-to-dana-whites-horrible-game-plan-criticism-of-paddy-pimblett-fight?rand=96749
