Paddy Pimblett has stood across from Justin Gaethje, Michael Chandler, Tony Ferguson and Bobby Green. The hardest punch he says he’s ever eaten came from a 5-foot-6 flyweight boxer during a casual spar.
Pimblett named the man on Wednesday during a conversation with Joe Rogan that ran close to three hours. The puncher is Brandon Daord, a 12-0 professional who shares a boxing coach with the Liverpool lightweight. Bloody Elbow first picked up the comments.
“Pound-for-pound the hardest punch I’ve ever been hit with is my mate who is a boxer,” Pimblett told Rogan.
He placed the session during COVID. Pimblett said he was roughly 20kg heavier than Daord at the time, and he guessed the boxer competes somewhere around 52 to 55kg. Then Daord landed one clean. Pimblett described the impact snapping his head around so hard he was staring at the wall before it swung back. He called it “by far the hardest punch I’ve ever been hit with” on a pound-for-pound basis.
The timing of the story is good for Daord. He meets Zimbabwe’s Ndabezinhle Phiri for the vacant IBO flyweight title on November 21, and a plug on Rogan’s show the week before a title fight is free promotion most small-show boxers would kill for.
The Gaethje question
This is where it gets spicy. Pimblett’s most recent loss came against Gaethje at UFC 324 in January, a unanimous decision in which Pimblett was dropped several times and finished the night bloody. Even so, the 31-year-old maintains Gaethje’s power is overrated. He claimed his featherweight training partner Luke Riley hits harder than the UFC lightweight champion.
When Rogan pressed him on the best shot he’d absorbed inside the Octagon specifically, Pimblett skipped past Gaethje entirely.
“In the UFC? I don’t think anyone’s hit me that hard,” he said.
His pick was Luigi Vendramini, from Pimblett’s promotional debut in 2021. Pimblett said the punch didn’t hurt him, but his hair flew on impact and everyone watching assumed he’d been rocked. Pimblett has been fighting since he was 16, and his professional record now runs to 28 bouts.
He also used the Rogan appearance to say it would be “bad for the sport” if Josh Hokit wins at UFC 334.
My take: I fully believe the Daord story. Flyweight boxers who sit down on shots with perfect mechanics can absolutely surprise a bigger man in sparring, especially one who isn’t braced for it. The Gaethje part is harder to swallow. You can argue all you like about who hits hardest per kilo, but the man got dropped several times in January, and the scorecards and the blood both say Gaethje’s hands did plenty of damage. “Pound-for-pound” is the most hardworking phrase in this whole interview. Daord gets his shot at a belt against Phiri on November 21, and if he lands anything like the punch Pimblett described, Phiri is in for a long night.
