Paddy Pimblett is coming off a tough year heading into Tony Ferguson fight

lightweight rising star Paddy Pimblett has categorized his upcoming fight with Tony Ferguson as a ‘lose-lose’ fight for himself, but Ferguson’s the biggest name that he’ll fought thus far.

“When we got the news Paddy will be fighting Tony, obviously it’s a very exciting fight for us because it’s a name, it’s a real name.  I see why Paddy thinks it’s a lose-lose because obviously Tony’s on a losing streak and who Paddy is and that sort of stuff,” Pimblett’s head coach, Paul Rimmer told TNT Sports.  “I agree with him and I don’t agree with him.  It’s the way that the fight happens.  If Paddy puts Tony away, it makes a massive statement in that division.  And, also, even though Tony is on a six-fight losing streak, the guys that he’s lost to are world class athletes… I kind of feel like it’s an honor for Paddy to be in that list of lightweights that he’s fought.  So, although Paddy sees it that way, for us it’s just another name, another person.  There’s a reason why he’s fighting him.”

“He (Paddy) loves fighting.  That’s the thing.  A lot of people fight, but don’t really love it.  He loves fighting.  That’s the thing he’s missed the most.  I always feel like you can’t control kind of what the opponent is going to do.  Someone as unorthodox as Tony as well, it’s going to be more difficult,” Rimmer continued.  “So we can only control what Paddy does, where he wants to make the fight happen and control those elements to Paddy’s game more than we ever have before.  But we’re still excited for it.  We’re happy for it.  We’ve got a good game plan ready to go.”

Pimblett last fought a year ago at UFC 282, defeating Jared Gordon in a controversial decision.  23 out of 24 media sources scored the fight for Gordon, but that’s behind him now.  

“It’s been a long year,” said Pimblett.  “The first four or five months of the year were difficult.  Having to have surgery… As they say, it takes tough times to create tough people, but I got through it.”

“We’re only judged on our last fight, and I can understand that, but when you can’t right it.  I couldn’t right the wrong and get back in there and show the improvements that I’ve made.  Obviously, that fight (the Gordon fight) I got injured like two minutes into it, a minute into, and everyone judges me on what I said in the cage afterwards when I had just been punched in the head quite a bit.  I don’t really register punches that hit me because I don’t feel it.  I just felt that I clearly had won the first two rounds and then he held me against the cage in the third.  Obviously, when I watched it back I was like, yeah, I understand why people thought it was a close fight because it could have went eight way.” said Pimblett.

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“When I got the injury in the fight, I ended up needing three surgeries, so we couldn’t just do like a standard surgery.  I had to get full ligament reconstruction.  I have artificial ligaments in my foot now, basically,” explained Pimbett.  “Obviously because of that it was tough.  “For twelve weeks I was compromised.  I couldn’t do anything.  It’s been rough.  It’s been hard.  The first half of this year was hard, very hard.”

With all that behind him.  Pimblett has Ferguson to face this weekend.  

“I really respect Tony Ferguson.  He’s a Top 5 lightweight of all time.  Even I want Tony Ferguson to get a win and then retire.  I just can’t let him do it at my expense,” Pimblett said.  “I’m expecting the best version of Tony, and it’s going to be an absolute honor to share the cage with him.”

Ferguson has enlisted the help of David Goggins ahead of his fight with Pimblett and Pimblett thinks it was ‘stupid.’  

“I don’t think doing 19,000 lunges across an American football field is going to help you in an MMA fight,” Pimblett said.