Paddy Pimblett is firing back at Dan Hooker after the Kiwi fighter responded to a generic ‘yer mum’ joke with a very specific insult regarding Paddy’s dead friend.
In case you missed it when it all went down last week, Pimblett suggested Hooker “couldn’t grapple a r*pist off his mom,” which is a pretty messed up thing to say. Then Hooker took it to an even higher level of messed up by bringing up Pimblett’s friend Ricky, who committed suicide back in 2022. “I thought we were mates, but you’re not a very good mate are you Paddy,” Hooker tweeted. “RIP Ricky.”
Pimblett is no stranger to going too far with insults. The whole reason Ilia Topuria and every other Georgian fighter wants to kick his head in has to do with Paddy ‘joke’ about how they deserved to get massacred by Russians. It took him a hot minute to understand the weight of what he was joking about then, but he intimately understands how messed up Hooker’s words were.
“I never said nothing bad about his mom,” Pimblett told Fox Sports Australia. “Missus Hooker’s probably a lovely woman, and I never said a bad word about his mom. But then he goes on and says something about my dead mate who can’t defend himself. So it was a bit weird. I had my friends and family messaging me saying what’s going on here and all that.”
“The way people have gone on about what I said, but no one’s [condemned] what he said and gone, ‘What are you doing?’ Mentioning someone who’s dead is very, very strange. But, you know, that’s the MMA world for you. No matter what I do, no matter what I say, people will make me look like the worst man alive when I just used an analogy for how bad Dan Hooker’s grappling is.”
“Dan Hooker’s beneath me now, especially when I win this belt,” Pimblett continued. “He’s 5-5 in his last 10. He’s an absolute crab, you know what I mean? People are calling Michael Chandler, but Michael Chandler knocked him out in two minutes. So what’s Dan Hooker?”
“You don’t mention dead people. Well, that’s what Dan Hooker’s done. Dan Hooker’s mentioned a dead person and basically trying to say it was my fault he killed himself, saying that I’m not a good friend. Like, that’s below the belt. What I said was nothing to do with his mom. Never said a bad word about his mom. What I said was an analogy for how bad his grappling is, and somehow I’m the bad guy, and I’m the one who’s in the wrong when he’s mentioned my dead friend.”
Pimblett is set to fight Justin Gaethje for the interim lightweight title at UFC 324 on January 24th. As for Hooker, he’ll fight Benoit Saint-Denis a week later at UFC 325 in Sydney, Australia. Surprisingly, “The Hangman” isn’t so far removed from “The Baddy” as Paddy suggested. Pimblett is ranked No. 5 at 155 while Hooker is ranked No. 6. And if Hooker wanted to give Pimblett a reason to fight him down the line despite a larger gap, he accomplished that goal with his below the belt comment.
