UFC 324 'could have been a different outcome' - Was Paddy Pimblett unlucky with 'missed' eye-poke against Justin Gaethje?

Justin Gaethje defeated Paddy Pimblett at UFC 324 to get his hands on the interim lightweight championship belt, but could there have been "a different chain of events"? That is what TNT Sports expert Nick Peet thinks, after he insisted that everyone missed "a really bad thumb poke" to the eye in round two. Peet argued that had the referee seen it, things could have played out differently.

‘We could have had a different outcome’ - Peet rues eye-poke in Pimblett loss to Gaethje

Video credit: TNT Sports

Nick Peet feels that Paddy Pimblett was hard done by during his defeat to Justin Gaethje at UFC 324.

Pimblett clashed with 37-year-old Gaethje for the interim lightweight championship, and despite taking the former champion the distance, missed out as the American was awarded the decision.

Gaethje was docked a point for an eye-poke in the opening round, but speaking on TNT Sports' UFC 324 Review Show, Nick Peet felt that something was missed that could have led to "a different chain of events".

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"What I will say, when Paddy goes back and looks at the tape and watches the fight back, there are big moments in the fight," Peet began.

"Like round three, which was obviously his best round, round five was a really good round from Paddy as well, maybe the fight had gone by that point.

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"Plus, when you look back, the eye poke in round one. Okay, Justin got a warning for it, but there was a really bad thumb poke in round two. Everybody missed it.

"We saw Paddy react, he went down with it, and we all missed it. It was only on the replay at the end of round two that you can see Justin throws a left hand and the thumb goes right into Paddy's eye."

Peet continued his defence of Pimblett and suggested that had the referee noticed it at the time, it could have led to "a completely different outcome".

"Marc Goddard, who I believe is the best referee in the business, had he seen it, had he spotted it, the fight would have been stopped at that moment," he explained.

"Gaethje would have been docked a point, and Paddy wouldn't have taken the kind of beating he took at the end of round two, which left him all cut and battered and bruised anyway."

"Had Marc seen it, a different chain of events may have played out," he added.

"I'm not taking anything away from Justin, I'm not taking anything away from Paddy. It was an absolutely epic fight, and he comes again.

"All I'm saying is, there's another dimension where that gets spotted, the fight gets stopped, Gaethje gets docked a point, and we could have had a completely different outcome."

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