Paddy Pimblett says Merab Dvalishvili's takedowns show 'your opponent's got up 24 times'

Watching Petr Yan beat Dvalishvili at UFC 333, Pimblett said three to five takedowns should be enough to control a round.

Paddy Pimblett says a big takedown count is not the stat it looks like, and he used Merab Dvalishvili as the example: "When like Merab, he's got like 25 takedowns in one fight. That just shows that your opponent's got up 24 times."

Pimblett said it while watching Dvalishvili's trilogy fight with Petr Yan in a UFC 333 reaction video on his own YouTube channel, posted on Sunday 25 October. "I always think them stats are not great, lad," he said. "You should only need three takedowns to be able, or five takedowns to be able to control over the rest of the round."

He compared it with Islam Makhachev's fight with Jack Della Maddalena: "When Islam fought Jack Della Maddalena, he only had five takedown attempts to be able to push this insane pace with."

Earlier in the fight, as Yan got straight back up from a Dvalishvili takedown, Pimblett said: "Merab's had control, but he's done nothing with it." Later in the fight he said Dvalishvili was "shooting constantly and [Yan's] just stuffing it, every single one".

Yan beat Dvalishvili on a unanimous decision, with all three judges scoring it 48-47, to keep the UFC bantamweight title at the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi on Saturday 24 October. Yan now leads the rivalry 2-1. In the same video, Pimblett said Movsar Evloev quit against Alexander Volkanovski in the main event.

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