UFC lightweight Matt Frevola has insisted that he will serve Paddy Pimblett "humble pie" if they are to meet in the Brit's octagon comeback next year.
The infamous Scouse fighter is currently sidelined with a foot injury, and could be out for the entirety of 2022 after struggling to a tight decision win over Jared Gordon back in December. Frevola had called for a bout with Pimblett after his upset victory over Ottman Azaitar at Madison Square Garden back in November, but has had to settle for No.14-ranked Drew Dober instead.
Frevola could land himself in the top 15 at 155lb with a victory over Dober in front of a home crowd in New Jersey, which would make him a more attractive prospect to Pimblett, who will want to move through the levels. And he feels that he must avenge his fellow New Yorker Gordon's tight loss, as well as the Brit's subsequent insistence that he had dominated proceedings.
"It's only a matter of time before I serve him the humble pie that he needs," Frevola told Mirror Fighting at UFC 288 media day. "Who better to serve that to him than me? Look at the way he handled that last 'win'. He needs to be humbled. When I watched the fight the night of, I thought Jared won.
"I know it was a close fight and in a close fight you can't be mad, in a close fight some guys think he won, some guys think the other guy won. It was a decision, right? So it was a close fight, he got the nod and you've got to look at it that way, you've got to be like 'that was a great fight, it could have gone either way but I got the win'.
"Instead, he kind of acted like his s*** don't stink, and I'm going to remind him that it does. I will [get revenge for fellow New Yorker Jared Gordon."
Pimblett insisted that he had comfortably won the fight in the immediate aftermath, after being given a 29-28 decision by all three of the judges in Las Vegas. But many fans and pundits felt that he had lost the first round and the third, causing considerable controversy after the fact.
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It was the icing on the cake of a disaster fight week that saw fans turn on the popular Liverpool native amid a feud between he and journalist Ariel Helwani. But in the aftermath, he has shown more humility regarding the result despite still feeling he did enough to win the bout.
Pimblett is recovering from surgery, and could miss the entirety of 2023. He told Sky Sports: "I had to get surgery after my last fight. Last fight, I hurt my foot in the first round, in like the first minute or two, threw a kick, hurt it. I felt it, like, but we crack on, we get through the fight.
"At the end of the fight, I remember going back to the medical room and being like, 'My foot's sore.' Couldn't get it looked at properly until I got home. Then, when the actual swelling went down, I didn't know if I needed to get surgery. It was a lot worse than we thought. I had to get inner and outer-ligament surgery, like reconstruction, so, it's big."
