Patty Pimpblea has done it. He is now amongst the elite of the lightweight division. A place that so many people, as did I, did not think he could reach. And especially after the Jared Gordon performance, right, that fight showed everybody, okay, maybe Patty Pimpblelet isn't on that level. He's a fun fighter, very exciting. He was a cage warriors champion. He has excellent Brazilian jiu-jitsu skills, great submissions, but lacks in a lot of different areas, right? We didn't think that Patty could be as good as he is now, and maybe even gets better from here. maybe one day fights for the belt, defeat some of the best fighters in the weight class. A lot of us did not think that Patty Pimpblelet would be as good as he is. I thought Patty's ceiling would be maybe at the bottom of the top 15 or something like that, like the likes of Drew Dober and Green and all these other guys would be a handful for Patty to defeat, especially off of his performance against Jared Gordon. Win some lose some against the veterans and other rising contenders, but never really be anywhere near title contention. And it seemed evident after that fight with Jared Gordon, who most thought defeated Patty. His striking seem unpolished, rugged, lack of defense making him easy to hit to the head, and weak wrestling skills to bring the fight into his domain of Brazilian jiu-jitsu where he's always been very good at. But the evolution of a fighter's abilities can be so unpredictable. Patty Pimpblelet, he is now going to be in the top 10, and he is in the wings of fighting the top five, the lightweight elite. I thought he was going to lose the green and then Chandler, and then from there, exchange wins and losses, but Patty improved a lot, way more than I thought he was going to. And I was wrong about his abilities. I was wrong about how good he is. But no longer, man. I see how good Patty is now. His strong Brazilian jiu-jitsu skills have improved. He's not only polishing the rugged areas, but he's also making the most polished of his game even better. Great submissions, great transitions, scrambles, all of that stuff. He went for a flying triangle, which is a very risky move against someone like Chandler. I mean, Chandler's fought guys like Marching Held and other great grapplers before. So Patty still has that athletic submission game to his arsenal, but his wrestling is a lot better, which is so rare in the sport for a Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighter to focus on getting his wrestling better and what you would think would be a logical next step for these guys. But most focus primarily on striking over wrestling for some reason. Successfully wrestling Chandler to the ground and holding strong top positions that Chandler could not shake off, which is an amazing feat. And that combination of wrestling and jiu-jitsu is going to make Patty such a formidable force in the lightweight division. And honestly for most of them like Brian Ortega and Glover Tashir is one of the few that did it too. Ortega is now implementing more wrestling but this late into his career is going to be tough. Patty's already getting his wrestling up to par before he fights the top of the weight class. Ortega fought the featherweight elite before he worked on his wrestling. Patty's doing the opposite. He's getting ready for those guys by being as wellrounded as he can be. And that goes into his striking as well. His striking is getting better, specifically his distance management more than anything else to keep his opponent in range. And although Patty still takes punches to the head sometimes, he ate a big shot from the powerhouse that is Michael Chandler, but ate it like a tic-tac. I mean, look at that. Patty Pimble throwing a leg kick. And Chandler beams him to the jaw with that right hand. Flush the perfect punch. Like, I don't think Chandler can land a more perfect shot than that. And usually fighters start skating on that octagon when they get hit by Chandler like that. And Patty starts taunting him. It's like, is that the best you got? Chandler froze in front of Patty as Patty's flexing on him, taunting him, and then throws his own jab. Like that whole time, Chandler could have moved forward. But it looked like Patty got into his head right there because Chandler was not moving. He wasn't attacking going forward. Usually if you land a good punch like that, you want to continue the pressure. You want to carry that momentum, but Chandler was like a deer in the headlights. And then Patty explodes forward with the jab and lands it on Chandler, who again is just standing there. That was the moment in the fight where it looked like Chenn started doubting himself. Like he landed that perfect shot and Patty just ate it like it was nothing. To brush off Chandler's power is ridiculous durability. I mean, the guy's chin is crazy, but he doesn't want to make that a habit, right? It's never good to display your chin, no matter how solid it is. Your chin should always be the last line of defense. So, if Patty's able to get his striking defense better while also improving his offensive wrestling, that guy's gonna be very hard to beat because he's huge for the weight class, too. Enormous. I mean, he made Michael Chandler look small. Michael Chandler walks around like 190, high 180s. He made that guy look small, but he doesn't have to work as much on his defensive wrestling unless he's going up against Charles, right? Cuz Charles can hang on the ground with Patty or Islam and Arman Sarukin. Actually, yeah, maybe his defensive wrestling is going to be important, but maybe against Justin Gage, he doesn't really have to focus on that. And maybe against Max Holloway and some of these other guys, but okay, that's interesting. It's usually with Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighters that they don't have to really work too much on their takedown defense because who wants to take them down? But I guess in the lightweight division, it's different because some of these guys are very good grapplers as well as wrestler like Islam, Charles, and Armen. These guys can hang on the ground with the absolute best grapplers in the world. So, Patty for this division because he is at lightweight. It's not going to be true for most weight classes, but at lightweight, even a highle Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighter needs to have good takedown defense. But in the stand up, his kicks are great, which fits perfectly into his improved distance management or the way he timed that flying knee as Chandler was advancing forward and then landed a right hook behind it as well, putting together the combination at range and literally crossed the entire octagon from landing the knee to throwing the high kick at the end, hitting Chandler with a counter left hook on the back foot. Just great distance management work. The kicks especially are some of his best weapons in the stand up. He's able to keep the fighter away so he can just start throwing kicks at him and stuff. And he has crushing knockout power in his hands that could throw off anyone if he lands and that's if he lands. You know, he's still improving his striking. He's not like uh Dustin Porier or Islam or Elia or something like that. He's still getting better at it. So, Patty Pimple is a very good fighter and will now be tested against the best in the world and that includes the highle kickboxing fueled by an overwhelming pace in the former featherweight champion Max Holloway. The evolving power striking and explosive defensive wrestling of former interim champion Justin Gi. The lethal offensive potency and supreme grappling skills of Charles Alivera. The persistent and strong wrestling skills of Armen Sarukin. The bulldozing power, elite grappling, and supreme boxing skills of Ilia Tapora. The impeccable well-roundedness and sharp reflexes of Islam Makashev. Can Patty hang or even surpass the lightweight elite? Who knows? But his evolution can't stop here if he wants to beat them. It's very different fighting at the top even compared to Chandler because Chandler isn't a highly technical fighter like the rest of them. He got by on his physicality and attributes and that was able to give him really good moments against some of the best in the world, but he doesn't have the fight IQ. He doesn't have the skills behind it and he couldn't beat those guys, you know? So, beating someone like Michael Chandler isn't enough. Patty has to get better because as he is right now with the performance even against Chandler, I think he can be a good fight with those guys. Maybe some of them he can beat. I could see him beating Justin Gai where I think he could take down Justin Gayi and if the fight goes to the ground, that fight's over. Patty wins easily by submission against Max Holloway. I mean, he's physically stronger. He's bigger. He might be able to wrestle him successfully, get him to the ground and submit him. Doesn't want to stay on the feet too much with Max, but he has the grappling to win that fight. Not saying that he would win, but he definitely has a good path to victory there. With Charles Olivera, I would say it's the most competitive where both guys can win in different moments. The jiu-jitsu would be very interesting between them two. I think Charles is a better striker, but Patty does have that knockout power. Charles doesn't have the best defense either. I think Charles would win, but that would be an interesting fight. Now, with Ilia, it's the kicks more than anything. It's going to be tough for Ilia, but everywhere else, I think Ilia would win. Armen and Islam are the toughest fights because they're very good on the ground. They have very strong wrestling. Patty's not going to be able to get him to the ground. It's gonna be tough for Patty to wrestle with those guys, right? The strike with Islam is tough, but he could land some shots in Armen. The only thing is Armen can wrestle against the best in the world. Like he was on the ground with Charles Alivera and still technically won the fight. He was on the ground with Islam Makashev. He doesn't deter because he's going up against some highle Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighter, you know. So those are some interesting fights. Obviously Islam is the toughest fight for Patty. Then we have to look at Dan Hooker and some of the other guys. I think Patty beats them. But yeah, a lot of us underestimated Patty Pimplet. No more. You know, he's a very good fighter. I get excited when I'm wrong on some of these fighters because I'm able to learn and understand of how good they actually are. He didn't just win the fight. There were certain aspects of that fight that were very impressive. I was mostly impressed with his wrestling. When we saw him take down Michael Chandler, their whole top position, and it was so hard for Chan to get up from the bottom. I'm like, "Okay, okay, Patty Pimpble is for real." Like, he has that kind of wrestling too now. That is going to be a difference maker in a lot of these fights because his grappling on the ground is insane. to get there was always a thing with a lot of these Brazilian jiu-jitsu guys. But seeing that performance, okay, maybe he could beat like another Glover Tashir at lightweight or something or Jac Sa like actual good Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighters who got better at wrestling and used it against the best in the world. So Patty Pimpblelet, very very good fighter. I can't wait until he fights those guys at the top end. Should be really exciting. And who do you guys want to see him fight next? Justin Gachi would be an excellent fight for him. So with Charles Alivera, they could do Armen, but I think either Armen or Ilia should fight Islam next. So Charles would be a good fight. Gai would be a good fight. Maybe even Dan Hooker, but Chandler Ray beat Hooker before and then all those fights will be good.