EXCLUSIVE Michael Bisping insists Paddy Pimblett ‘is not just all hype and one-liners’ and warns that Tony Ferguson could have fallen victim to a key ‘mindf*** of the fight game’ ahead of UFC 296 showdown

• Paddy Pimblett makes his return from injury against Tony Ferguson at UFC 296
• He remains undefeated but some fans still question how far ‘The Baddy’ can go 
• Paddy ‘The Baddy’ Pimblett MUST seize his moment in the UFC 296 limelight after seeing his career stutter – The Hook

Just how good is Paddy ‘The Baddy’ Pimblett? That’s the question plenty of MMA fans have been debating. 

It seems peculiar to wonder about the credentials of a man so far undefeated in his UFC tenure but such is the fascination with the Liverpudlian that he already has huge pulling power. 

After three successive finishes, there was a narrow – and for many controversial – decision win over Jared Gordon a year ago. 

It saw some of the excitement surrounding Pimblett cool and he’s out to regain lost momentum this Saturday by beating a legend – Tony Ferguson. 

Michael Bisping spoke exclusively to Mail Sport about how he sees Pimblett at this moment in time after a year out injured, claiming the Liverpool fan favourite is hampered by his shark infested weight class.

Paddy Pimblett (left) faces Tony Ferguson (right) on the main card of UFC 296

Pimblett scored a contentious win over Jared Gordon during his last outing in the UFC

‘Paddy is a good fighter. He’s not just all talk and hype and funny one-liners and tea-bagging his opponents, the man can fight, there’s a reason he is where he’s at,’ said the former middleweight champion. 

‘The issue is that he’s in the lightweight division, that’s not an insult, he’s in the toughest division in the sport. Islam Makhachev, Charles Oliveira, Justin Gaethje, Dustin Poirier, Michael Chandler, Conor McGregor, Arman Tsarukyan, the list goes on. It is insane. 

‘If he was in a different weight class, naturally a bigger dude with the same skillset, yeah for sure he could be a champion – I’m not saying that he can’t – I’m saying that’s the issue for him. 

‘The fight with Jared Gordon, at the time a lot of people talked a lot of smack because a lot of people thought Jared won. It was a close fight that could have gone either way but that’s aged pretty well. Gordon had a massive win at Madison Square Garden recently and he was doing pretty well against Bobby Green.’

Ferguson is riding a six-fight losing streak and critics would argue he’s being fed to Pimblett, an immensely marketable rising star the UFC want to get behind. 

But Bisping is wary of the 39-year-old still having something left in the tank to pull off a big upset against the Brit. 

He went on: ‘Of course Tony has lost six in a row – but if you look at the people he lost to… we’re talking Charles Oliveira, Michael Chandler, Gaethje. Tony Ferguson is a wild man, he’s out of his mind, he’s a crazy person and we’ll get into all of that in the show as well (Tales From The Octagon 2). 

Pimblett remains undefeated since he signed with the UFC and is on an upward rise 

Pimblett is a submission expert but has power in his hands too, as he’s shown in the octagon

‘If anyone can pull it off, it’s Tony Ferguson, now he’s even training with David Goggins. I don’t know what running ultramarathons is going to do for him in the octagon but the one thing Goggins will help with is the mind. 

‘The mind is the most important tool after you lose confidence so I think that’s the real work that’s being done.. I think Paddy is going to have a tough fight on his hands but it is going to be a good one.’

That David Goggins collaboration is a strange one, but nothing should surprise about Ferguson anymore, given that he used to condition his shins by kicking lampposts. 

Goggins is a former Navy SEAL, now renowned for sharing his endurance feats on social media and accompanying them with rallying cries that equate to ‘get off the sofa’. 

He put Ferguson through ‘hell week’, which is what the US military use to break trainees with extreme endurance work. Ferguson was worked to the point of vomiting and Goggins was impressed.

‘Tony finished Hell Week today. I have had many people try yet he is the first one to get through it,’ he wrote. 

‘I broke El Cucuy on Day One, or at least I thought I did. I had him deep in the hurt locker and figured the questions were soon to be coming. But, I was wrong.

‘He woke up on Day Two even more fired up to go. There was never a question asked. His response was always the same “OK, Coach.”

UFC veteran Ferguson is on a six-fight losing streak heading into the bout with Pimblett

A post shared by David Goggins (@davidgoggins)

‘Around 11pm on Wednesday night, when he could barely walk after having completed nearly 2 miles of walking lunges and a shit ton of other cardio and weight training, I figured I would put a fork in him and gut him. But the craziest thing happened….

‘The mother*****r gave me a crazy ass smile and I could tell that he had flipped the switch. I was there for the rebirth of El Cucuy. It happened somewhere on the Jacob’s Ladder at around 11:11pm. I knew then that the torture I was putting him through was no longer torture.

‘A lot of people ask me if I think he will win his next fight – I don’t have the first damn clue about that. That’s up to Tony.

‘What I do know is that the man who walks into the octagon on December 16th will be a deeply changed man.’

Bisping believes the insane lengths Ferguson has pushed himself to could actually end up hurting him in the fight itself and drew on his own experience to explain. 

‘I used to overtrain in every single one of my fights because it meant so much to me and I wanted the success so badly. I used to push, push, push, but sometimes you have to realise that less is more. Jason Perillo my coach used to say, “It takes confidence to have a day off”. Thinking, “I’ve got to get out of bed, run, have another session”, seeing your opponent sparring and thinking, “I’ve got to go and train!” is doubt creeping in. 

‘It takes confidence to say, “I’m ahead of the game, I’m doing well here, I don’t need to kill myself, today I’ll focus on recovery, stretch, get a massage”. It doesn’t mean be lazy, sit on your backside. 

‘The one time I didn’t overtrain was when I fought Luke Rockhold on two weeks’ notice because I didn’t have a chance and all of a sudden my knockout power returned and I told myself I’d never overtrain again but then I definitely did. This is just the mindf***k of the fight game. It controls everything. Doubt creeps in and it makes you do silly things.’

Ferguson has teamed up with David Goggins ahead of his fight with Paddy Pimblett

Pimblett and Bisping are conscious that Ferguson might be overtrained 

Pimblett believes he is on a hiding to nothing on Saturday night and described it as a lose-lose fight for him. 

It is a mentality that Bisping can sympathise with, explaining: ‘I understand it because if he beats Tony, people will be saying, “well Tony had lost his last six”, he’s losing to everybody. And if he loses, they’ll say, “well he lost his last six and still beat Paddy”. 

‘It makes a difference from his last one which was a win-win! I’m just kidding. I understand that. But the reality is, you can’t underestimate it. 

‘If anyone can pull it off, it’s Tony Ferguson, the man is a legend and had the longest win streak in the history of the lightweight division at one point. Granted, he now has the longest losing streak, but if you go through the losses, who they were and the circumstances, they weren’t that bad.’

Pimblett may feel it is lose-lose but in truth, if he can finish Ferguson, a man notoriously difficult to put away, it will be a real showcase of his talents. 

He is on the main card of the biggest UFC event of the year. He loves a big stage and the Las Vegas lights beckon. Surely there’s a win in there somewhere. 

Tales From The Octagon 2 comes to London 14th Dec and Manchester 16th, www.myticket.co.uk

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