Paddy Pimblett Agrees to Jake Paul’s Million Dollar Sparring Bet
That’s right, Jake Paul is beefing with yet another MMA fighter, this time it is Paddy Pimblett. Paul loves to pick fights with MMA fighters, but in fairness to him, Pimblett started this Twitter scuffle. Nonetheless, it has resulted in Pimblett agreeing to spar Paul after UFC 282. The stakes will be high as Paul has offered to hand over one million dollars if Pimblett wins; however if Paul wins, Pimblett has to join his United Fighters Association (UFA).
If you are unaware, I will quickly catch you up to speed on this argument.
This beef started when Pimblett made an appearance on PubTalk where he said he thought Paul’s fight against Anderson Silva was fake.
“Jake Paul is actually not that bad now – even though I think his fights are fixed. I don’t think the Tyron Woodley KO was fixed because when you get knocked out like that and you land face first, if you’re not unconscious you’re going put your arms out. You can’t help it – that’s a human reaction. But I’ve seen an angle of a punch he hit Anderson Silva with the other day, when he sat down, and he didn’t even hit him.” Paddy told PubTalk.
Quote via Barstool Sports
Before we move on, let me say: Pimblett is dead wrong here. As much as I would love to live in a world where Paul did not beat Silva, that is not reality. First of all, the punch clearly lands. Secondly, if it was rigged, Silva would not have gotten up and continued to fight. If you are going to rig a fight you might as well go all the way. Lastly, Paul was going to win on the scorecards regardless of if he landed the knockdown in round eight. He ended up winning on each scorecard by four points or more. With that margin, Silva could have won round eight and Paul would have gotten his hand raised.
That may be a bit of a tangent, but it is relevant to the story. Obviously, Paul did not appreciate Pimblett’s claim and prosed the sparring session between the two.
Pimblett agreed to the main details of the bet. The disagreement came in the time and place of the sparring session. Pimblett wants to spar Paul at the UFC Apex the week after his bout at UFC 282.
As you likely imagined, Paul was consistent in pushing for the fight to take place in Puerto Rico. Apparently, Pimblett is interested in doing a podcast with Paul. Paul is trying to kill two birds with one stone and get both done at the same time.
With these two goofballs get together and spar? Who knows. One thing I do know is that it probably does not go well for Pimblett. I watched Paul beat Silva and Tyron Woodley in boxing matches and I watched Pimblett get dropped by Luigi Vendramini, who is 1-3 in the UFC. Overall, Pimblett’s biggest weakness in his MMA skillset is his striking defense.
Paul is far bigger too. Pimblett is 5’10” and fights at 155 while Paul is 6’1″ and fought Silva at 187 pounds. At the end of the day, those are different weight classes.
The interesting thing about this is that Paul is playing chess. I do not know what his plan is with the UFA. I do not know if he wants to get MMA fighters paid more or if he is just trying to upset his rival, Dana White. In fairness, he may be doing both at the same time. With that being said, winning the sparring session and making Pimblett join the UFA would create noise in the MMA world. Simply put, getting one of the biggest stars in the sport to join an organization that aims to increase fighter pay would be a situation to monitor, to say the least.
