Paddy Pans Fergy-Goggins ‘Bizarre’ Bromance

Former UFC interim lightweight champion Tony Ferguson endured “Hell Week” with raspy fitness influencer David Goggins, a former Navy Seal who rose to prominence by running in tiny gym shorts while shouting generic platitudes at fat slobs (like me).

UFC lightweight Paddy Pimblett is not impressed.

“I think it’s bizarre,” Pimblett said on The Energized Show (transcribed by MMA Fighting). “I think it’s f****** stupid. If there’s two things Tony’s never needed help with it’s his mental state — because look at the armbar with Charles [Oliveira], he didn’t stop. And look at his cardio. He’s never had a problem with his cardio, so I don’t understand why he’s done it.”

Pimblett is scheduled to fight Ferguson at the upcoming UFC 296 pay-per-view (PPV) event, scheduled for Sat., Dec. 16, 2023 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Matchmakers took some heat from UFC fans for pairing “The Baddy” with the free-falling “El Cucuy,” loser of six straight (with four gruesome finishes).

Pimblett suggests no amount of cardio can recoup the losses suffered by Ferguson in his brain-scrambling defeat to Justin Gaethje. In fact, several fighters over the last couple of years (including Khabib Nurmagomedov) suggested “El Cucuy” was “finished” in MMA and headed for the retirement home.

“He must be thinking he’s not where he was mentally a couple of years ago,” Pimblett continued. “That’s not the reason he’s losing fights — it’s because he got older and he’s lost athleticism, and he’s not as fast as he once was. Obviously, that beatdown from [Justin] Gaethje changed his whole career, and then getting knocked out by [Michael] Chandler the way that he did, his brain is not the same as it was three or four years ago.”

We’ll find out (one way or the other) on Dec. 16 in “Sin City.”