UFC is banking on Pimblett being good for business, no matter what happens

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If you took the floppiest Muppet off Sesame Street, put him in trunks and had him beat the hell out of Oscar the Grouch, that is the appeal of Paddy Pimblett.

In an Ultimate Fighting Championship sea of bland, interchangeable, hard men who all look as if they’d show up to their own wedding in a ‘Tapout’ T-shirt, Pimblett has sparkle.

How do you define that exactly?

It’s not the John, Paul, George and Ringo accent. It’s not the deeply-out-of-fashion Bieber-meets-Lancelot bowl cut. It’s not the binge eating (Pimblett loves retelling the one that goes: “If I weren’t a fighter, I’d be a diabetic”). It’s no one of those things and all of them together.

Pimblett is a particular type from a particular part of the world. A non-stop-talking, Liverpool-bred, working-class braggart who’d be highly amusing were he standing beside you at a bar, and much less so if you had to live with him. The sort of guy you’d love to see fall straight onto the top of his head, but always lands right side up. Remind you of anyone?

For most of the last decade, UFC the sports competition has tried to diversify its portfolio, while UFC the business kept investing in Conor McGregor. Even as he was being competitively lapped by his sullen Russian nemesis, Khabib Nurmagomedov, McGregor continued to be the fight game’s public face.

For most average Joes, he still is. McGregor hasn’t won a fight in nearly three years. He hasn’t fought one in a year and a half. So that’s a problem.

Another problem – people willing to brutalize others don’t tend to be ablaze with personality. In order to sell the fights, you need charmers and bullies. Charming bullies are best.

The best boxer in the world right now is probably heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk. You may have heard the name. Do you feel any compelling need to watch him fight? Probably not, because while Usyk is a gifted pugilist, he’s no raconteur. Outside the hour he spends in a ring twice a year, there’s nothing about Usyk you can get your arms around.

Pimblett is the rare sort who can fight and talk at the same time. He’s able to walk that line between being sweet-natured and giving off a vague whiff of sociopathy. That combo sells.

If an heir to McGregor is required, why bother getting creative? Just find another McGregor. Pimblett – called Paddy the Baddy – is the obvious choice. So obvious that UFC isn’t even bothering to pretend this is anything but a coronation.

Pimblett, 27, is more of an internet phenomenon than a ring one. So on Saturday’s card, he was the co-headliner. He fought Jared Gordon, a mixed-martial-arts veteran with a hardscrabble backstory and all the charisma of a trout. Even his nickname – Flash – is obvious.

The way this was supposed to work – Pimblett steams out of his corner and hits Gordon so hard that his head pops off; Pimblett then moonwalks across the top of the cage while eating the world’s largest hoagie sandwich.

How it actually worked – Gordon ground Pimblett for three rounds; to an untrained eye, Gordon looked marginally the better of the two; the judges gave the fight to Pimblett in a unanimous decision.

Afterward, Pimblett did dance. He did profanely abuse his critics during the in-ring interview with Joe Rogan. He did chug seven teaspoons of processed sugar (via a can of Coke) while destroying a ham sandwich.

Sounding amiable and very, very pleased with himself, Pimblett got to the nub of the matter: “Everyone talks about me, lad. That’s how you stay relevant. People mention me.”

Watching it back, even I want to punch him. It’s marketing gold.

Was the fight fixed? Lots of hardcore UFC types think so. Cameras caught Rogan rolling his eyes as the judgment was announced.

A few other thoughts:

“The worst decision in UFC history.”

“Someone in the back with a ski mask because that was a robbery.”

“I’ve lost all faith in the sport.”

Those comments aren’t from fans. They’re from other UFC fighters.

Pay attention, because this is how you build a legend.

It would obviously be better if Pimblett were, you know, good. That’s how McGregor came up, as well as UFC’s second-most successful crossover star, Ronda Rousey.

Both those fighters treated every interaction like a scene. When they found a good bit, they knew to refine and repeat it. They were always on. Pimblett is the first person since who has those same instincts.

All the people yelling, “Fix!” misunderstand how such things work. It’s never one guy telling another guy what to do. Real-world fixes work via osmosis. Everyone in an ecosystem understands how nature works. Without sunshine and water, everything dies. Pimblett is photosynthesis for the fight game. If your social capital depended on the success of UFC, who would you be inclined to see in the most favourable light?

Since it’s not too shameless, even the fix narrative is good for UFC. You’ve read this far, haven’t you? If you were already interested in Pimblett, you have strong feelings about Saturday night. If you weren’t, you’ll probably go from here to see what Pimblett’s all about.

This thing that is happening doesn’t occur all of a sudden. It builds up over months, and requires multiple points of interaction. A few YouTube videos, a couple of headlines in mainstream outlets, a controversy you need explained, a couple of hours on a Saturday night you decide to spend in front of the TV. That’s how you turn a plumber’s apprentice from the wrong side of Dublin into the highest-earning athlete in the world. You create buzz and buzz creates money.

Pimblett started the serious part of his buzz phase this past weekend. UFC doesn’t need you to like him, or believe he’s any good or even that he’s on the up and up. It just needs you to care.

It’s a good plan. The wrinkle is that Pimblett still has to fight other people who would also like to be rich and famous. If he isn’t a bona fide winner, he will be exposed and it will be humiliating. If that is not proceeded by a substantial period of success, it will bring UFC lower than it has felt during the post-McGregor hangover. But that’s just another reason to watch.

For now, the goal is running out the string. Keep winning, sure. But more importantly, keep people talking.