Paddy Pimblett motivated by doubters ahead of quick finish at CW 113: ‘It was light work’

Last weekend, Paddy Pimblett got back to winning ways after being sidelined by injuries for 18 months and he admits that seeing the raucous support for short-notice replacement opponent Decky Dalton motivated him ahead of their clash behind closed doors at Cage Warriors 113.

The Liverpudlian had several fights fall apart over the 18 months of inactivity. Famously, his November bout with TUF finalist Joe Giannetti fell apart at the last minute when the American came in too heavy for their London meeting.

The Cage Warriors poster boy had three different opponent for Cage Warriors 113, an event that suffered several casualties due the coronavirus. After Pimblett’s original opponent Donovan Desmae withdrew from the contest, his second scheduled opponent Davide Martinez was unable to travel due to the Italian quarantine. With Dalton stepping in on a week’s notice, “The Baddy” admitted he was just happy to be back in there.

“It was great - you couldn’t beat it,” Pimblett told MMA Fighting’s Eurobash podcast.

“Well, you could’ve had a crowd there obviously, but [the win] was something that we needed to get done and we did. I’m just made up that I got back in there. It should’ve happened in November but it got put back, but it was half worth the wait, to be honest. Especially after all of the uncertainty in the week. It was a pretty mad one.”

After seeing teammate Molly McCann’s UFC London bout get cancelled, Pimblett began to think Cage Warriors 113 wouldn’t go ahead. He revealed that the temptation to cease his strict diet was palpable during the uncertainty.

“On the Sunday when Molly’s [UFC London fight] got cancelled, I thought ours was next. I was sitting in my house looking at this cake and then looking at my dry chicken and peppers and all the liters of water I had to drink and I was thinking, ‘Which one will I go for here? Is this going to be on?’”

The bout opened the main card of the Manchester event, with Pimblett getting the job done within three minutes of the first bell. Due to the amount of support Dalton had and his support insisting that Pimblett was in for a rude awakening, the Next Generation fighter acknowledged that there was an extra element of satisfaction that came with the victory.

“It does motivate you of course; it makes you want to do it more,” Pimblett explained.

“I wanted to stay on the feet for longer with him. He threw a few leg kicks and I checked every single one of them. He hit me with a left hook that woke me up. Paul [Rimmer] always says I need a shot to wake me up and that was it - he hit me with a left hook and I was like, ‘Sound, we’re on.’ I hit him with a one-two down the middle and I could see his face mark up, so I thought, ‘Yeah, we’re having it here,’ but then he threw the kick and went to his back and from there it was light work.”

“I’m made up with it,” he added. “I thought we were on the feet for longer than we were - we were only on our feet for like 30 seconds weren’t we? It was only three minutes long, wasn’t it? I didn’t even realize it was that quick.

Check out Paddy Pimblett on the latest episode of Eurobash. It begins at 1:02:00.