Paddy Pimblett’s weight is becoming a talking point even outside the MMA bubble.
The UFC lightweight appeared Wednesday on Steve-O’s Wild Ride — a podcast hosted by Steve-O of Jackass fame — and stepped on a scale to see where he’s at just five weeks after his victory over Jordan Leavitt at UFC London, which was contested at 155 pounds.
The verdict: 206.6 pounds, more than 50 pounds over the lightweight limit of 156 pounds for a non-title UFC bout.
And according to Pimblett, that was actually lighter than expected.
“If I had gotten on them scales tonight after we’ve went and ate and f****** watched the UFC — 210 [pounds], easy,” he said. “I get bloated, lad.”
Check out video of the impromptu weigh-in above (around the 20:30 mark).
Pimblett has drawn both warnings and criticism from within the MMA community for his jarring fluctuations in weight outside of fight camp. UFC president Dana White said the issue was “not good” and admitted it made things “tough” on UFC matchmakers when plotting out the course for Pimblett’s fights. UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski echoed those comments, stating that it blew his mind to see how far Pimblett gets from his target weight and calling the trend “terrible” for Pimblett’s health.
But Pimblett has been resolute in dismissing any criticisms about his weight. The Liverpudlian memorably mooned onlookers at his latest UFC weigh-ins and declared “kiss my ass” to any detractors who tried to “fat shame” him ahead of the event.
At 3-0 in the UFC, Pimblett is already one of the most popular fighters in the promotion. And he’s confident he has his relationship with the scale under control.
“If you ever find some of the pictures from my weight cuts years ago, I look terrible, lad. Like eyes rolling in my head,” Pimblett said.
“But our gym and our team have learned [from] mistakes of our past. Me and Molly [McCann] and a few of the older people in the gym have done the bad weight cuts to realize what we need to do, so none of the younger ones do that now. Nowadays it’s easy, lad — I’m mentally strong enough to do 25 pounds if I f****** need to.”
