Sean O’Malley sides with Ariel Helwani over Pimblett: ‘How can you hate on that?’

Things are looking worse and worse for Paddy Pimblett. While Pimblett ingratiated himself to his boss slamming Ariel Helwani and basically outright accusing Helwani of profiting from his mixed martial arts coverage, not many are siding with Pimblett.

And especially not since Helwani provided the receipts in which Pimblett all but asks to be on the show only to turn around and have his manager ask to be compensated for an appearance.

To make the matter worse, once Helwani talked to another journalist about if anyone ever asked to be paid to be on his show – Pimblett’s manager went haywire and basically told on himself by penning an incriminating social media post asking MMA guys to not do interviews for free.

The MMA fans on twitter put the two and two together and that caused the relationship to deteriorate. Still there’s quite a way to go before you accuse someone covering your sport of profiting off of you and not your boss who is refusing to even adjust the bonuses for inflation (UFC bonuses have remained the same for a decade).

Pimblett was previously amicable with another up and coming star – Sean O’Malley but O’Malley thinks this is a misstep for Pimblett:

“I literally seen a clip where Paddy was talking to Dana. That it pisses him off that journalists, specifically Ariel, go out there and try to make money off our names. Basically what he’s saying, right? Which drives me f***ing crazy. Ariel is passionate and about fighting. More passionate than anyone I’ve ever met. Right. Loves the sport.”

“And he found a way to make money doing what he loves. How can you hate on that? I found a way to make money. Doing what I love fighting. People find their passion. They find ways to make money about it.”

“I just, I. I can’t even wrap my head around where it’s coming from.”

As far as getting paid goes, O’Malley thinks he should be compensated for talking to someone who is not established and has no audience. As long as it’s someone with a solid reputation, the benefit is mutual:

“if they don’t have an audience and they’re zero followers and they want me to spend a half an hour on their time? Yeah. If you have an audience like Ariel, then, I mean, you’re you’re getting benefit out of it, too. Yeah. You know what I mean?”

“Not even that. It’s like, don’t even look at it like I’ll have a conversation with someone who’s very deep into the sport who’s going to ask me pretty good questions. And yeah, I mean, I don’t know. I just. I didn’t like that. I like Paddy. Yeah, I didn’t like that.”

Pimblett has gone on a different show since to try and imply that he’ll release his side of the text exchanges and even went so far as to claim he called Ariel to hang out and not to be on his show:

He told as much to ‘ Shakiel Mahjouri

“You wanted me to not do a paid gig, to do something for free with him and somehow people have defended him. Simple. That’s simple. I don’t need to talk about it anymore because that’s what the f**k he’s come out with is false narrative and made the big said that didn’t bother him but he made an hour and 15 minute video about it.”

“So, you know, we know it’s bothersome to lie and make himself look good. Read private messages but we’ll address this after the fight. Maybe manager don’t use. What if we’ve got all the stuff there is going to look like an idiot.”

“So, you know, we know it’s bothered him. He’s out to lie and make himself look good. Readin’ our private messages but we’ll address this after the fight. Me and me manager don’t you worry. We’ve got all the stuff there and he’s going to look like an idiot.”

“Yes, the voice memo where they said you want to meet or didn’t once mention in an interview, said, do you want to meet or so like have a drink or absence? I was like a friend. But, you know, either he obviously never saw me as a friend that I showed him as a friend. He only ever saw me at pound signs and dollar signs. I was always just a commodity to him. ”