Paddy Pimblett’s weight is becoming a talking point even outside the MMA bubble.
The UFC lightweight appeared Wednesday on Steve-O’s Wild Ride — a podcast hosted by Steve-O of Jackass fame — and stepped on a scale to see where he’s at just five weeks after his victory over Jordan Leavitt at UFC London, which was contested at 155 pounds.
The verdict: 206. 6 pounds, more than 50 pounds over the lightweight limit of 156 pounds for a non-title UFC bout.
And according to Pimblett, that was actually lighter than expected.
“If I had gotten on them scales tonight after we’ve went and ate and f****** watched the UFC — 210 [pounds], easy,” he said. I get fat, lad .”
Check out video of the impromptu weigh-in above (around the 20:30 mark).
Pimblett’s erratic weight fluctuations outside of fight camp has attracted both praise and warnings from the MMA community. UFC President Dana White stated that the issue was “not great” and acknowledged it had made UFC matchmakers’ lives difficult when plotting the fights for Pimblett. Alexander Volkanovski, UFC featherweight champion, said the same. He stated that it was amazing to see Pimblett reach his target weight. The trend is “terrible” and praised UFC president Dana White for his comments.
But Pimblett has been resolute in dismissing any criticisms about his weight. At his UFC weigh ins, the Liverpudlian made a memorable gesture and confronted anyone who wanted to fat shame him.
At 3-0 in the UFC, Pimblett is already one of the most popular fighters in the promotion. He is confident that he can manage his relationship to the scale.
” If you look at some photos from years past, you will see that I am a terrible looking lad. Like eyes rolling in my head,” Pimblett said.
“But our gym and our team have learned [from] mistakes of our past. Molly [McCann], me and some of our older members have made bad weight reductions to help us realize the things we must do. It’s simple, lad — I can do 25 lbs if I need to .”
