Paddy Pimblett On Brendan Loughnane: ‘He Can Sell 50 Tickets To His Mates, I Sell Out Arenas’
Paddy Pimblett returns to action on Feb 24 at Cage Warriors 90 when he takes on Alexis Savvidis at the Liverpool Echo Arena.
The Liverpudlian will be moving up to 155-pounds for the first time in his career and he will be looking to take a big step forward towards getting himself a Cage Warriors lightweight title shot in front of his home fans. One man who is never far away the conversation when Pimblett’s name is mentioned is Brendan Loughnane. Talk of a fight between the two has rumbled on years, but the reality of the situation is that it’s never come close to happening.
Speaking this week to MMANytt.com earlier this week, Pimblett made it very clear that he didn’t want to even speak about Loughnane.
“Oh come on, f***ing hell Jim, you should know better than anyone else lad, don’t even mention his name to me lad,” Pimblett said. “I’m getting proper sick of it, Brendan Loughnane. I don’t talk about him lad, he talks about me to stay in the limelight. I don’t need to talk about him.
“It can happen if he comes on to Cage Warriors, you know what I mean? I’m not fighting for Palestinian war money.”
Pimblett then went on to give very strong opinions about the credibility of Loughnane’s record and suggested that the Mancunian hasn’t faced the strongest competition over the last few years.
“His record is 11-1, but he’s beaten people that are like 1-4 and 2-4, 4-4 and 2-2,” Pimblett said. “That’s not a test. That’s just someone put in front of ya because you lost your last fight.
“Mines the opposite, I’m coming off a loss and Vladimir Sikic or Alexis Savvidis are both tough tests whether you coming off a loss or a win.”
When presented the argument that a fight between himself and Loughnane would be one of the biggest fights in UK MMA right now, Pimblett gave a timely reminder that he’s the one who has been selling out the Echo Arena and that Loughnane has yet to prove he can sell tickets on the same level.
“It wouldn’t sell a lot of tickets, I’d sell a lot of tickets,” Pimblett said. “Brendan will sell like 50 to his mates and then I’ll sell the whole arena out, that’s what it will be.
“No one wants to see him fight. He sells like 100 tickets in his hometown. I sell arenas out lad.”
Media be warned. Pimblett doesn’t want to speak Loughnane.
