The fall and rise of Paddy the Baddy (2024)

He bounces to the ring like Tigger, swinging his long arms up and down to gee up the crowd, his blonde mop flopping against his head; the Joker, the imp, the happy clown. Once inside, he switches. Every fighter has a game face, but Paddy ‘The Baddy’ Pimblett’s is something to behold. It arrives like a whisper of bad news on a bright summer’s day: those big, soppy eyes frost over, the mouth pulls from an emoji grin into an ominous scar. He transmutates, before his opponent: the jester who was a killer all along.

Pimblett was supposed to be the UFC's golden boy and golden goose, the first fighter since Conor ‘The Notorious’ McGregor to reach beyond the sport’s late-night fandom. After 30 years as an underground interest, MMA has been edging towards the mainstream – between 2015 and 2021 it was the fastest-growing sport in the world – but like any other, it needs an active, signature star capable of hooking in new crowds. Pimblett – talented, boyishly handsome with a trademark look; another gobby, gregarious maverick from across the Atlantic, this time from the city of The Beatles – fitted the bill perfectly. Dana White licked his lips and signed him as soon as he could; Paddy the Baddy debuted in 2021 and racked up three impressive KO victories on the trot. Without even becoming a champion yet, he was the sport’s most recognisable star, the name on everyone’s lips.

Then, in Las Vegas in December 2022, something went wrong. Pimblett won his fourth fight against a battling New Yorker called Jared Gordon, only this time by decision. As his name was announced, Pimblett wafted his arms in triumph to orchestrate the crowd as normal, and those in Paddy The Baddy wigs obeyed with roars of delight. But beneath all that, for the first time, were boos. “That was a close one,” Joe Rogan, who moonlights as the face of UFC punditry, told him as he put a microphone into Pimblett’s face. “No it wasn’t, no it wasn’t!” Pimblett insisted. The boos grew louder.

The problem was that it was close. In fact, many felt Pimblett had lost. And yet he’d won unanimously on the judge’s scorecard. Did White’s promised one get an easy ride? In those seconds in Vegas, in what should have been his latest moment of triumph, something soured. Pimblett’s co*ckiness in victory turned him from a hero to a villain. On YouTube, a video called ‘How Paddy Lost His Fans In A Week’ racked up over a million views. On top of that, he was injured in the Gordon fight, an ankle tear that would lay him off for untold weeks. The darkness was about to descend on Paddy the Baddy once again – only this time, far away from the cameras.

NextGen gym, in central Liverpool, is the oldest mixed martial arts school in the city. Located behind a windowless brick facade with a small metal shutter door, it resembles an airport hanger. Puddles of shoes and clothes line a vast floor covered with practice mats on which people of all ages bounce around aiming kicks at each other’s shins.

Walking around outside in the August sunshine is Paddy Pimblett, NexGen’s most famous graduate, who has recently been honoured with a giant mural on the wall, trailed by a photographer, his wife Laura and their giant bulldog, Lenny. “You look like Zoolander lad!” someone shouts, because you don’t do a photoshoot on the streets of Liverpool without someone taking the piss, and you certainly don’t do it when you’re the most recognisable sportstar in the city outside Anfield or Goodison Park. “Nah, you look wicked though Paddy,” says someone else, and gets a flash of that jester grin in return.

Pimblett has just started training again after the Gordon fight. There were long weeks on the sofa, inactive – the worst fate that can befall any professional sportsperson – as well as the continued dragging online. “The first half of this year was a big struggle mentally,” he says. “Up until May, I was very depressed and down in the dumps.” Being open about his mental health – more on which later – is one of the reasons Pimblett is loved by fans.

Probably from my family. My dad drilled into me that nobody is better than me and that I can do whatever I want. That is my biggest asset. I’m probably not technically as good as a lot of people I have fought, you know what I mean? But I believe in myself that much that I beat them. It's crazy to be honest, because there’s nothing really else in life that I feel like I excel in. This is the only thing and luckily enough I found it.

How did that happen?

I was always a little scrappy kid, but just with family and friends. I wasn't really one for fighting on the street or nothing. Didn't go to the footy matches and have fights with people – nothing like that. Then when I first walked into Next Gen, I jumped on the kids' class – I was only 15 – and nearly guillotined some kid who had been going for months. From that day on, I knew I'm a natural on the ground. Even rolling with adults I felt I was alright. Then I done my first striking class and I got battered by Milly, this Brazilian woman. I'll never forget it!

What happened with your first fight?

I got kicked out of school like, a week before it. I hated school. I mean, it's not like I don't like authority, but I don't like getting talked down to. Anyway, I took the fight on a week’s notice, and got given tickets. So on the Monday morning, I’m outside the school selling them. And the teachers were fuming. Coming outside telling me to leave. And I was like: "What? It's not like I'm selling sweets. I'm selling tickets for my fight. Shut up!" I ended up winning by decision against a 24-year-old. I was 16. When I got my hand raised it was just like “Yeah, I'm doing this forever.”

The Gordon fight wasn’t the first time an injury had plunged Pimblett into a place of despair. It happened in 2018, shortly after he was first offered a deal by the UFC, which he famously turned down to stay with Cage Warriors, the much smaller UK equivalent. They were offering a better contract, as well as the opportunity to contend for a belt for the first time. But Pimblett rushed into that bout for the lightweight title without recovering properly from a hand injury, and it backfired. Out for 18 months, thinking he’d blown his shot with the UFC, Pimblett went into the deepest depression of his life.

More professional athletes are talking about their mental health. But there is something particularly powerful when the conversation starts with stars of combat sports. Perhaps it is because it so brilliantly and necessarily contradicts the stereotype of the silent tough guy; perhaps it is because working-class males – the predominant consumers of boxing and UFC – are still the social group most likely to end their own lives.

On 23 July 2022, after he beat Jordan Leavitt by submission at UFC London, Paddy Pimblett took the microphone from presenter Michael Bisping. “I woke up on Friday morning at 4am to a message that one of me friends back home had killed himself,” he told the packed arena. “This was 5 hours before my weigh-in. So Ricky lad, that’s for you.” He then held the microphone closer to his face and raised his voice. “There’s a stigma, in this world, that men can’t talk. Listen: if you’re a man, and you’ve got weight on your shoulders, and you think the only way you can solve it is by killing yourself, please speak to someone. Speak to anyone. People would rather you’d cry on their shoulder than go to your funeral.”

The clip made headlines around the world; for many people, it was the first – perhaps the last – time they had seen Paddy the Baddy. “Everything just blew up in a crazy way,” Pimblett remembers. “I had all Hollywood actors and actresses sharing stuff and tagging me in it, which is like, woah this is mad.” It also led to a surge in men in the North of England contacting mental health services.

Not that he intended it that way, but the Leavitt interview cemented Pimblett as one of the biggest draws in the UFC. It makes the reversal of fortunes in his next post-fight interview all the more dramatic.

What was he like, your friend Ricky?

It's funny because everyone always says, when someone dies, he was the life and soul of the party. But he really was. Always had a big smile on his face. He was running around, sweating his head off with his glasses on. He never went to school with us, but he lived right by us. He wasn't like a close friend, but we grew up with him. I'd known him for years.

And that message you shared, about not bottling your problems up, you learned that yourself the first time you were injured?

Yeah. I was in a bad way for about a year. The way I felt was: I’m a fighter, I shouldn't have to go to my Mrs and say, I'm feeling like this, or feeling like that. I'm meant to be the man in the relationship, the strong one. So I shouldn't have to put that burden on her. Without Chris, my boxing coach, saying that to me, "get it off your chest lad", I’d probably still be in a crazy rut now. And that's what I like to say to people: a problem shared is a problem halved. It's the best way to put it.

Is that what the culture is usually like in MMA gyms?

That's what our gym's like. NextGen is a family. I've heard about the vibes in some other gyms. And I just wouldn't want to go there. Some people might like going to a gym where they all try to knock each other out, every sparring session, know what I mean? But we're not like that, we'd rather look after each other.

Have you spoken to Dana about any it? The fallout, the hate? Has he helped you?

I’m not bothering Dana with that. I'm not a bitchass. Why would I speak to Dana about that?

Pimblett has the endearing quality of being both no-nonsense and big-hearted; he switches between the two quickly, like a fighter adjusting his stance. It is only when I mention Dana White that a slight frostiness comes over the conversation. To understand why, you really need to understand the Ariel Helwani situation.

Last year, Pimblett got into a public spat with the influential commentator over claims made by Helwani that Pimblett had asked to be paid to appear on his podcast, MMA Hour. Pimblett, for his part, defends this by claiming Helwani was asking him to cancel a separate, paid opportunity to make the appearance. The disagreement highlights what is a bit of a grey area for podcasts in general. Are they more like giving interviews to newspapers or magazines, for which public figures are not paid? Or more like appearing on a TV chatshow, for which they sometimes are?

And that’s why you had a go at him when Dana went on your podcast?

Lad, I had been dying to say [what I said] for like 13 months, you know what I mean? The one thing what's annoyed me after is people saying I only said [what I said] to brown nose Dana. I said a few nasty words I shouldn't have, I didn't need to go that deep. But that's just the way I am. And it was fight week, you know what I mean?

So your adrenaline was up?

I was depleted. I was not eating many calories. I was only drinking water, eight litres a day. I was snappy, you know what I mean? I was biting people's heads off. So once I got going lad, I was going. But as I say, the be all and end all of it is, he wanted me to cancel paid work to go and do an interview with him for free. And he's meant to be an advocate for MMA fighter pay. He's obviously not. The way he done that [making the private messages public], he just said it from his point of view. I could have done that. But I'm not going to do a video sitting there, reading personal messages out. Because I'm not a little snitch.

It’s early December, and Paddy Pimblett is lying on his bed in a hotel room in Las Vegas, talking to me on FaceTime. In a few days, he’ll return to the same location as the Gordon fight, almost exactly a year later, to take on the UFC veteran Tony Ferguson. It will be his long-awaited comeback. His ankle has healed and Pimblett is, he says, in the best shape of his life.

There’s more good news, too: he and Laura recently found out they are expecting twins. “It'll give me a goal,” he says of the news. “I've always just done this for myself and the missus and me friends and the city. But now I'll actually have something to fight for.”

How does he feel about walking out in front of fans again after what happened last time? “I know I'll get a good response,” he says. “I always do. But in this one I probably am a bit of a villain because Tony is such a legend of the sport and he's on a six-fight losing streak. So everyone wants to see him go out on a win. Even I want to see him go out on a win lad, but I can't let him do it at my expense.”

Pimblett will always back himself. It’s what he was raised to do, it’s why fans love him and it’s how he keeps winning. But whether it's about the Gordon fight, Helwani, or his next challenge, there is a hint of humility now amid the ferocious self-belief. There is the Paddy who, aged just 16, incensed the entire MMA fandom of Britain by declaring in a Cage Warriors forum 'I'm the best in the country, does anyone dispute this?' when he’d barely fought yet. And there is the Paddy who stood in front of the world and told men that it’s OK to cry on their friend’s shoulder. Maybe they’re not as far apart as they seem.

In any case, Pimblett insists looking beyond this fight isn’t a mistake he’s going to make. “I've done that a little bit too much in the last five years or so. When I got injured last time in the first round, it was tough. But I got through it. I learned so many life lessons, as well as fighting lessons. I will never look past an opponent ever again.

“People train harder than they've ever done to fight me because they know, if they beat me, their career is gonna get to the next stratosphere. I'm expecting that from Tony Ferguson next week. But I will win fella. Don’t you worry about that.”

Photographer: Rob Jones
Groomer: Terri Grisdale