The UFC’s Paddy Pimblett had words for Mark Zuckerberg after a big win in London on Saturday. When asked who he wanted to fight next, the Liverpool native named the Facebook founder and said he wants to “punch his head in.” Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, banned Pimblett’s account that had notched close to half a million followers.
“Who I want to fight… Mark Zuckerberg. Lad I’m gonna punch your head in! I’m sick of you lad. Sick of you shutting my Instagram accounts down,” Pimblett said in his post-fight interview. “Alls I do is help charities and help people with mental health problems. You’re the biggest bully in the world lad!”
UFC fighter Paddy Pimblett says he wants to fight Mark Zuckerberg for CENSORING and being the biggest bully in the world.
Think Mark will get in the ring with him? pic.twitter.com/SBM5KvibnK
— The Constitutionalist (@PropertyOfGod_) March 20, 2022
According to Pimblett, the account was banned after he traded insults with commenters. Pimblett made a post in support of a local fan whose father had just died, which attracted insults from a handful of trolls. After Instagram failed to take action against the commentors, Pimblett cursed them out and was banned.
“The lad had never been to a football match before and his dad just died so I wanted to do something nice for him. So, people started commenting disgusting things about him,” Pimblett said. I reported the comment and I got it with a notification back twenty minutes later, ‘This comment does not go against our community guidelines so we will not remove it’. So, then I called him a piece of s**t. I said ‘You dirty piece of s**t. You are a piece of vermin on my shoe’ and the next day my account was disabled.”
Paddy “The Baddy” Pimblett improved to 18-3 after an impressive first round submission win over Kazula Vargas. Pimblett is arguably the UFC’s fastest growing star and had already built up a sizable fan base in the U.K. before signing with the promotion. Though it was just Pimblett’s second fight with the UFC, his three-round bout with Vargas felt like the main event to most fans.
Saturday’s card marked the UFC’s first trip to London since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020. An event was scheduled and quickly sold out last summer, but the card was scrapped after the British government re-introduced lockdown measures in response to the Delta variant.