Paddy Pimblett issues UFC return update as he dismisses claims about recovery

‘Paddy The Baddy’ was comfortably beaten in his title fight with Justin Gaethje this month

Paddy Pimblett has said he is aiming to return to the cage this summer, amid suggestions he should “take the rest of the year off”.

On 24 January, Pimblett suffered a brutal loss to Justin Gaethje in their interim lightweight title fight, losing on points after five rounds in Las Vegas.

The result at UFC 324 marked “Paddy The Baddy”’s first loss in the UFC, as a grudge match with regular champion Ilia Topuria slipped away.

And given how much damage Pimblett sustained against Gaethje – suffering multiple knockdowns and two eye pokes – many fans and pundits have recommended that the Liverpudlian takes a short break from fighting. Yet Pimblett, 31, seemingly disagrees with such suggestions.

“Everyone thought my face was a mess,” Pimblett said on his YouTube channel on Sunday. “Listen, I’m only a week out from the fight, my face is sound. It’s got a little bit of bruising, [but] the only thing that’s wrong with me is my eyeballs, off fingernails scratching my eyeballs.

“But you know, we get on with it. I’ve had a nice little week of chilling, I was back in S&C [strength and conditioning] yesterday, lifting some weights. I’ll be back into Next Gen [gym] tomorrow, Monday morning.People are feeling sorry for me and this and that, but I’m great.

Paddy Pimblett (right) was almost finished by Justin Gaethje multiple times (Getty)

“In our sport, you can’t win every fight. It’s one of them: you don’t lose, you learn, and I’ve learnt a lot from that fight already. I haven’t watched it back yet; I’m still quite annoyed with myself and a lot of other things surrounding the fight, but we’ll watch it back on the channel, I’ll watch it back with everyone.

“Again, though, like I said in my [Instagram] post after it: congrats to Justin Gaethje. I did say before the fight, I want the best version of Justin Gaethje – and that Justin Gaethje turned up, so hats off to him. I hope he wins the undisputed title off Ilia, and hopefully we can run it back, even though I don’t think he’s got too many fights left.

“Hopefully we can run it back in the future, ‘cause there’s a couple of things in that fight that have pissed me off. But it’s done now, there’s nothing we can do, there’s nothing we can go back and change.

Pimblett will aim to bounce back this summer (Getty Images)

“The one thing that has made me laugh, though: I did say before the fight, ‘I’m gonna make his face look different,’ and for a couple of days he made my face look different! I had big shiners [...] I had big, puffy black eyes. But as you can see now, it’s a week later, there’s nothing wrong with me. The only thing that’s up with me is I’ve probably got a scratched cornea or something like that.

“I’ll be back in the gym tomorrow, I’ll be back training. People think I’m gonna have to take the rest of the year off; I’m not, I’ll be fighting in the summer.”

It is unclear who Pimblett will face next, although he was involved in a vulgar back-and-forth with Dan Hooker before UFC 324. Hooker went on to lose at UFC 325 on Saturday, suffering a TKO defeat by Benoit Saint-Denis.

Dan Hooker after his TKO loss to Benoit Saint-Denis (Getty)

“Nice to see Dan get TKOed after the s*** he was chatting,” Pimblett said in Sunday’s YouTube video. “He probably enjoyed me losing last week. That was probably a generational hate watch for him. I never got finished, though [...] Hooker, unlucky, mate.

“I really like Benoit Saint-Denis. I think he’s a proper nice fella, and I like his fighting style. He comes to bang, [I] proper like Saint-Denis. I hope he does well, but obviously if he’s next for me, he’s getting finished.”