Justin Gaethje is grateful for his insane knockout loss towards Max Holloway.
In maybe essentially the most viral MMA second of 2024, Holloway delivered a buzzer-beating KO towards Gaethje at UFC 300, successfully turning ‘The Spotlight’ into simply that.
Within the time since, Gaethje has bounced again with two large wins, together with a stable victory over Rafael Fiziev and a five-round beatdown of Paddy Pimblett at UFC 324 to as soon as once more turn out to be interim light-weight champion.
Subsequent up for Gaethje, in all chance, is a showdown with reigning 155-pound king Ilia Topuria. Ought to Gaethje do the unthinkable and eventually declare undisputed gold on MMA’s greatest stage, he believes that viral loss towards ‘Blessed’ will finally assist his legacy somewhat than hinder it.
“I’m glad I misplaced like that,” Gaethje instructed Pat McAfee. It’s a significantly better story for my legacy to lose like that than to let another second go and simply lose a call. Me getting knocked out after which coming again and having two wins in a row makes these two wins far more inspiring, and it makes what I’m going to do on the finish of my profession that rather more inspiring.”
Justin Gaethje open to 3rd assembly with ‘The Diamond’
No official date has been set for Gaethje’s anticipated conflict with Topuria, however ‘The Spotlight’ did open the door for a possible threequel with one other former interim champion — Dustin Poirier.
“Dustin’s a warrior, and I’ll at all times respect him,” Gaethje instructed Bloody Elbow when requested a couple of trilogy combat along with his light-weight rival. “If he actually needs to come back again and the UFC needs that combat, I’d do it. However I’m centered on shifting ahead, not backward. I’ve acquired targets I’m chasing, and that’s the place my consideration is.”
Gaethje and Poirier are at the moment tied at 1-1, with Poirier taking the primary assembly by way of a fourth-round knockout in April 2018. 5 years later, they might run it again at UFC 291. This time, Gaethje would get his revenge, scoring an enormous head-kick KO simply 60 seconds into the second spherical.
