Paddy ‘The Baddy’ Pimblett isn’t content with his current UFC look, as he asks Dana White and the promotion to make his latest wish come true.
Ahead of his enormous return fight at UFC 304 in Manchester later this month, the popular Scouser has sent a rather unique request to the promotion – one that only a handful of fighters have had accepted over the years.
Paddy ‘The Baddy’ Pimblett requests his orange shorts return for UFC 304
Whilst British MMA fans have been delighted with Paddy Pimblett’s success so far in the UFC, there’s also a major part of his iconic look that we’ve yet to see in the promotion – the patented bright orange fight shorts.
Throughout his career in Cage Warriors, Pimblett fought in these tight orange-and-white shorts that were inspired by Pride legend Kazushi Sakuraba’s own design; becoming as synonymous with Pimblett as his Beatles-esque haircut itself.
However, these iconic orange shorts have yet to make an appearance in the UFC as the promotion has its own uniform code which doesn’t allow fighters to wear certain designs, colors, or patterns.
The only exception to this rule was Bryce Mitchell’s camouflage shorts that debuted back in 2020, although the UFC has started to make these custom fight kits more accessible in recent months.
Earlier this year, the promotion confirmed that they would be bringing back custom fight kits for specific fighters, starting with bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley getting his bright pink shorts for his clash with Marlon Vera at UFC 299.
‘Suga’ was followed by Max Holloway, Justin Gaethje, Zhang Weili and Alex Pereira – all at UFC 300 – with Dustin Poirier also getting his own floral design at UFC 302 back in June, arguably the best design of the bunch so far.
Well, if Paddy ‘The Baddy’ Pimblett gets his latest request approved; he could very well walk to the octagon on July 27 wearing those iconic orange shorts once again.
Taking to Instagram, Pimblett shared a screenshot of a message that he sent Venum, the company in charge of UFC apparel, with such a request.
“Yoyooo am I getting my orange shorts then for UFC 304? Everyone wants to see me in them,” the message read, with Pimblett tagging both the UFC and Dana White in the post under the caption: “What’re we saying then?”
Cage Warriors themselves responded to the special appeal, stating “We Are starting the Petition” – ironically, there’s already a genuine petition on Change.org asking for this exact thing, although that’s only received 50 signatures since 2021.
Welterweight veteran Gilbert Burns also commented on the post with a series of ‘fire’ emojis, with the vast majority of the responses from fans being equivocal to ‘Why hasn’t the UFC done this already?’
Paddy Pimblett challenges ‘King’ Green to ‘back up his word’ at UFC 304
Both Pimblett and his UFC 304 opponent had already been in the news this week, with Bobby Green officially changing his legal name to King Green – which had been his fighting nickname prior.
“I know I worked so hard at Bobby Green,” Green wrote in the caption of a recent social media video, “But the point was to show u go from nothing to a King.”
It didn’t take long for Pimblett to respond to the name change, writing online “This mushroom has actually changed his name to ‘King’, so yous can officially call me ‘King Slayer’ on July 28th.”
Only a few hours later, and the pair would be back in the headlines as Green stated that he’d be willing to take the fight to the ground in order to show off his grappling credentials.
Given his slick submission skills, Pimblett called on Green to put his money where his mouth is; “Grapple with me then, lad,” he goaded after completing a workout, as seen on his YouTube channel.
“Back your word up. We both know that you can strike even though you’ve got no power… Grapple with me. Let’s see if you’ve got the balls to grapple with me.”
Whether the Liverpudlian gets his way regarding either the custom orange fight shorts or a more grappling-heavy style remains to be seen – Paddy ‘The Baddy’ Pimblett versus the-now King (formerly Bobby) Green is the featured bout of UFC 304, scheduled for Saturday, July 27.