Justin Gaethje has been Looking back on his interim lightweight title fight with Paddy Pimblett at UFC 324, and one of his key takeaways is that ‘The Baddy’ has underwhelming kicks.
Gaethje revealed that detail while being quizzed by Demetrious ‘Mighty Mouse’ Johnson about why he kept circling into Pimblett’s power hand during the fight.
Former UFC flyweight legend Johnson said that if he’d done that again him he’d have responded with kicks, but Gaethje explained that Pimblett didn’t have the kicking power to threaten him.
“He was kicking me though, but he kicked like a b*tch,” Gaethje told Johnson. “So I was like, I can walk through that. Once I figured I could walk through it, then it was money.”
While that’s not a strategy Johnson would necessarily advise, he accepted that that there were valid reasons why Gaethje fought the way that he did.
“It’s always fascinating like how the way he moves,” Johnson said of Gaethje. “He wants to circle into power, but at the same time, he said he would fight me totally different because my footwork is so much better than Paddy Pimblett’s. And it makes sense.
“Sometimes in fighting you take those trade-offs where it’s like, okay, I’m going to circle into Paddy’s power because he can’t f*cking hit hard. He can’t kick hard.”
Check out more of Johnson’s tactical talk with Gaethje in the midst of a ‘Celebrity Sweat’ event below, as well as other chats with the likes of Jon Jones and Henry Cejudo.
