Conor McGregor has praised Paddy Pimblett after his latest UFC win over Jared Gordon while Jake Paul has taken an opposing stance.
Pimblett recorded his fourth consecutive UFC victory at the weekend by narrowly outpointing Jared Gordon at UFC 282 in Las Vegas. The win received mix reaction with the Liverpudlian coming under heavy fire, as many suggested he lost the fight and was wrongly awarded the decision.
Punch statistics showed that despite Pimblett landing more significant strikes, his rival landed three takedowns and had a total of six minutes of control in the fight. Despite many UFC fans questioning Pimblett's credentials, McGregor came to social media to defend him, writing on Twitter : "Congrats Paddy The Baddy this weekend. Doing all the right things despite what you’d think. Great stuff. Onward."
McGregor has been a frequent supporter of Pimblett throughout the early stages of his career and even covered his bar tab when the Liverpudlian visited his counterpart's Dublin pub 'The Black Forge Inn'. Meanwhile YouTube star Paul delivered a less sympathetic view, writing: Being a UFC fighter, with zero rights and no control, is amazing if you are one of Dana White’s favourites.
"You can even do a food review for free to drive up his views. What a league. You all deserve better." Paul later retweeted a post from Pimblett's rival Gordon which read: I was robbed everyone knows it. I can cry about it, but I have been back from worst and god's plan is the best plan so I know there’s something big to come from it."
Pimblett was delighted with his win despite the controversy and is now plotting a continued rise at 155lb, with many suggesting he will soon need to fight opposition in the top fifteen of the rankings. He has regularly drawn comparisons to McGregor throughout the early stages of his career, but will have a sizeable task on his hands with the Irishman rising to become two-weight champion.
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Despite many scoring the contest in favour of Gordon, Pimblett has claimed he won all three rounds of the contest and has launched into a furious X-rated outburst towards his haters. He said after the final bell: "I know I won that fight. I deal in facts and I won an unanimous decision, it wasn't even like it was a split decision.
"I don't care what anyone says. When you look back at the history books, I've got a green marker next to my name so everyone else can suck my a***hole. Look at his face and then look at mine, fights get scored on damage now and I landed a lot more damage.
"After looking at the stats after the fight, I think I won all three rounds. Control time means nothing, damage does. I spoke to him in the back, he said to me 'I thought I won'. I told him he was a tough son of a b**** because he took some big shots and kept walking forward."
