‘It was a sloppy, undisciplined fight’: Matt Brown criticizes Justin Gaethje vs. Paddy Pimblett ‘slugfest’ at UFC 324
Justin Gaethje went to war with Paddy Pimblett this past Saturday night to claim the interim lightweight title in the UFC 324 main event while both fighters collected $100,000 each for taking part in the Fight of the Night.
The slugfest is already being hailed as a potential Fight of the Year contender but veteran UFC welterweight Matt Brown voiced his opinion that watching Gaethje and Pimblett beat the hell out of each other for 25 minutes didn’t exactly blow him away. He backed former UFC heavyweight champion Josh Barnett when he called it “one of the worst UFC main events in a while” and Brown says it all comes down to the skills he expects to see in a fight of that magnitude.
“When I go to watch a UFC fight and particularly when I’m watching a title fight — it’s not necessarily surprising what we saw — but when I go to watch UFC, I’m looking at the Super Bowl of MMA,” Brown explained on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “I want to see the highest level martial arts that the world can produce and that’s what the UFC does. They go get the best guys in the world, and they beat the hell out of each other until one gets a title shot. When you’re looking at a title shot, even an interim title, you’re looking at two of the best martial artists on this planet.
“What we seen on Saturday was two of the toughest guys on the planet swinging for the fences with no skill hardly at all. Both of them are more skilled than that. I’m not taking anything away from them, but what they showed on Saturday night was not indicative of their skill, but they did not fight like I would expect a world champion to be fighting.”
While almost universally praised as an entertaining affair, Brown was hoping to see either Gaethje or Pimblett stand out as a real threat to reigning UFC lightweight champion Ilia Topuria, who was unavailable to compete on Saturday due to some ongoing personal issues.
Instead, Brown felt like he saw two guys looking to put on a show but failing to actually display the kinds of abilities possessed by a pair of the top fighters in the world in one of the deepest and nastiest weight classes in the sport.
“I wouldn’t say it left a bad taste in my mouth or anything. I was just saying what I felt,” Brown said. “I think those guys would admit themselves it was a sloppy, undisciplined fight. They had no responsible hands, responsible posture, no discipline. I think they’d probably agree with that. Justin Gaethje, all respect to him, the guy doesn’t care about that stuff either. It seemed like he was kind of moving towards that but Saturday, he didn’t care about that stuff at all.
“The fact that anyone would disagree with the fact that this was a sloppy, slugfest just blows my mind. It wasn’t a high skilled, high level fight. It was just two guys swinging for the fences and Justin’s just better at that game. He’s probably the best in the world at that game.”
During his own career, Brown was drawn into more than a few of those back-and-forth brawls so he understands why that’s such an appealing style, especially when it comes to fan reactions.
But as time passes and he continues to grow and evolve on his own martial arts journey, Brown just doesn’t see the attraction to seeing a pair of top ranked UFC fighters just throw caution to the win for the sake of entertainment. That’s ultimately what Brown witnessed at UFC 324 as Gaethje and Pimblett were seemingly more concerned with putting on a show than actually showing which one of them was the better mixed martial artist.
“To be honest, these slugfests, they don’t excite me like they used to,” Brown said. “I’ve seen so many of them. Hell I’ve been involved in enough of them myself. I’m not out here putting myself on a pedestal that I’m some special guy that hasn’t been involved in these types of things myself. It’s fun. I get it. I get where Justin wants that. Because it’s a f*cking blast, no doubt about it. But look, maybe I’m just becoming an old grumpy man, I don’t know but that just doesn’t excite me like it used to.
“We all like watching the slugfests. We all like watching the knock-down, drag out wars. But I want to see the skill. You see it all the time in other sports, and I just expect that out of a UFC title fight, and it’s not what we got. We got what literally looked like a regional show fight.”
Perhaps more discouraging than anything else with that fight was Brown being totally convinced that Gaethje stands little chance to dethrone Topuria if they meet later this year.
Now Brown has constantly touted Arman Tsarukyan as the real No. 1 contender in the division even if he’s not getting the next title shot, but he was hoping that Gaethje would show something different to convince him otherwise.
“Neither one of those guys showed any signs that they are the best in the world,” Brown said. “I’m not hating on these guys. It’s all going to get twisted up ‘he’s a f*cking hater!’ They did not exhibit anything showing that they are the best in the world. They showed that maybe they’re the toughest in the world.
“The way that Paddy and Justin fought, I’ve literally seen fights like that on local shows here in Columbus.”
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