Dana White: Brad Pickett Fought the Wrong Fight Against Ian McCall

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Brad Pickett’s second flyweight fight for the UFC did not go to plan. He was outfoxed and out-pointed by the higher-ranked Ian McCall on the way to a unanimous decision loss at UFC Fight Night Dublin on Saturday.

The loss puts him at 3-3 in his last six UFC outings. His tactics against McCall were crowd-pleasingly aggressive and were also appreciated by Dana White, although the UFC president feels they were incorrect for this particular opponent.

“Brad Pickett is an exciting fighter. I don’t want to act like I am his coach, but against a guy like Ian McCall [maybe they weren’t the best]. He’s loading up trying to knock him out every time [he throws a punch], but McCall is a guy that moves,” he said.

“[McCall] doesn’t have a style that’s a big fan favorite. He has a style where he will run in and out, hit some big shots and run. Pickett was trying to knock him out all night. If he would have sat back, used his jab to set up his punches, [and] thrown combinations, the fight would have looked completely different.”

Pickett is a five-time “Fight of the Night” award winner, and his fight with McCall was expected to be a frontrunner to scoop the award in Dublin. But it never got going into the kind of firefight it could have been, and instead it was Cathal Pendred and Mike King who earned the honor - and the accompanying $50,000 bonus checks.

“He just went in there tonight trying to take Ian McCall’s head off,” White said. “Brad Pickett is a fun fighter. Every fight he is in, he is usually in the pocket throwing bombs with somebody, and then he ends up catching them and knocking them out. Tonight I think he just fought the wrong fight.”