Paddy Pimblett and Justin Gaethje Deliver in UFC 324 Main Event, But Both Fighters Aren’t Elite
If the UFC’s top decision-makers expected Paddy Pimblett to kick off the company’s Paramount era with a bang, they’re surely disappointed.
Saturday night’s UFC 324 card in Las Vegas was the MMA promotion’s first production of 2026, and, more importantly, its first broadcast on Paramount after many years on ESPN platforms.
The switch marked a massive transition for the UFC, and the company’s matchmakers stacked the first Paramount card accordingly.
The main event of the card delivered in a big way.
It was topped by an interim lightweight title fight between American Justin Gaethje and England’s Paddy Pimblett. The interim title was created to keep the division moving while the undisputed champ, Ilia Topuria, deals with issues outside the cage.
UFC brass always keep their cards close to their chests, but as the ESPN era ended, and the Paramount era began with Gaethje vs. Pimblett, it’s easy to understand what the promotion’s top executives wanted. They viewed Pimblett, a former two-division Cage Warriors champ, as a future star — like Conor McGregor once was. Gaethje, on the other hand, is one of the most beloved fighters in MMA history, but has clearly been contemplating retirement for years. He’s on the way out. In other words, he was not supposed to win.
Funny how that works, eh?
Gaethje derailed the rocket ship that Pimblett was supposed to be on with a tough, hard-hitting performance, beating the Scouser from Liverpool by unanimous decision.
He won with the strategy that has carried him to success in the vast majority of his fights to date, simply out-fighting Pimblett over five rounds, landing the more powerful shots, and eating whatever was fired back at him in the offing.
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Gaethje’s interim title win may not have been what the UFC brass was expecting from the first show on Paramount—and truth be told, the new interim champ will most likely be defeated by Topuria and even Arman Tsarukyan, who deserved the chance to fight for gold before he or Pimblett did.
And yet, you have to give Gaethje credit. His ferocious punching power is by now legendary, and at the age of 37, he still managed to inflict heavy damage on his upstart opponent.
The undisputed champ, Topuria, is riding KO wins over Alexander Volkanovski, Max Holloway, and Charles Oliveira. Tsarukyan, meanwhile, is riding wins over Dan Hooker and Charles Oliveira. These are elite fighters, whose conspicuous absence from Saturday’s title fight calls the fight’s integrity into question entirely.
Still, that doesn’t make the UFC’s first event of 2026—and its first on Paramount—a failure.
Leading into UFC 324, UFC brass announced plans to elevate post-fight bonuses from $50,000 to $100,000. Fans immediately celebrated the move, but it clearly meant far more to the fighters. The UFC 324 undercard was evidence of this, as four of the six fights before the main card ended by stoppage.
Unfortunately, an extra $25,000 didn’t seem to incentivize main card fighters to push for a finish—their fights are too high stakes—but the changing pay structure is indicative of a new era of MMA. Fighters stand to make more money, and that’s a very good thing.
The UFC surely imagined this era beginning with Pimblett, with a belt around his waist, on Paramount, but things don’t often go as planned in MMA. In fact, almost nothing can be predicted in this violent sport.
As such, the Paramount era begins with Justin Gaethje as champion, and Pimblett—who for so long has been the UFC’s golden boy—nursing his wounds. It’s surely not how they imagined things, but it’s the nature of the beast.
