WASHINGTON, D.C. — On a night unlike any the UFC has ever put on; on a night that blurred borders between sports, politics and culture; and on a night of ostentatious pageantry and gaudy superpatriotism, Justin Gaethje, never in doubt, did exactly what he always does.
Dogged and uncompromising, bullheaded and relentless, Gaethje rewound the clock again, to a dying era of warhorse lightweights determined to prove they could dig deeper than the next man, putting a prolonged beating on the heavily favoured Ilia Topuria over four rounds until the Spanish-Georgian champion’s corner saw enough and called it on his behalf.
That’s how Gaethje entered this sport on the Colorado amateur scene nearly two decades ago. That’s how he built his incontestable reputation as one of the fight game’s most violent, demanding opponents over a gruelling, 15-year professional run. And that’s how he won undisputed UFC lightweight gold for the first time in three attempts Sunday with a quintessential Justin Gaethje performance.
“I prayed so much for this opportunity to do something legendary. And I know that was absolutely legendary because I can’t even believe it,” Gaethje said in the moments following his name being read as the UFC’s new 155-pound champion. “I told myself I was going to lose. I told myself I was going to get embarrassed. So that I could go to my most primal place and dig deep. And I had to. That guy had me in trouble. He had me rocked. He rocked my chin, smoked my liver. And I stuck in it.”
Where Gaethje’s win ranks among all-time UFC upsets is a matter of subjectivity but it’s unquestionably high on the list. Gaethje closed as a +375 underdog; Topuria, a -525 favourite. Such was the monumental task facing a forever-game, yet timeworn Gaethje in his career’s twilight against an extremely heavy-handed yet technical Topuria in his athletic prime.
But after the final in a series of unique, theatrical walkouts — set to live, show-stealing renditions of each fighter’s music by the United States Marine Band — that made the most of a sporting event’s unprecedented access to the halls of American power, Gaethje came out of his corner determined to meet Topuria’s ferocity, landing jabs and uppercuts throughout a heavy-volume first round as his opponent calmly marched forward firing clean, hard shots of his own.
The power discrepancy was glaring in the early going, as Topuria’s shots to the head and body appeared to jar Gaethje in the opposite direction, particularly as he hunted a finish towards the end of the first. And Topuria nearly found it in the second, when he dropped Gaethje with a crippling body shot and spent the final two minutes alternating between heavy ground-and-pound and sly submission attempts.
But pity those who expend significant energy trying to put Gaethje away early and can’t, because he’s built a career on withstanding pressure and punishment only to continue walking forward like a zombie in four-ounce gloves. Cue the third, when Gaethje busted Topuria up repeatedly with jabs and right crosses, forcing not only the action but chaos in Topuria’s corner as it worked to keep him in the fight.
“I knew I was going to have to get through the first round. His skills are unmatched when he’s fresh,” Gaethje said. “But my durability, my tenacity, and my heart will carry me through those first couple rounds. And nobody can outwork me in Round 3. And especially not the championship Rounds 4 and 5.”
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After an extended break between rounds as a doctor assessed whether he could even continue, Topuria began the fourth much more composed than he ended the third. But a slowed pace only benefitted Gaethje as he continued to find openings to land a degree of damage to Topuria’s face that would’ve made him unrecognizable if not for the tattoos and jet black hair.
Ultimately, it became the kind of fight one never wants to get into with Gaethje. A war of attrition, a test of resolve, a vintage Justin Gaethje brawl. And he put an exclamation point on that fact with a knee to Topuria’s ribs at the culmination of the fourth that left a dent. It sent Topuria hobbling to his corner where his team did the sensible thing and saved him from himself.
“I owed him that,” Gaethje said, “because he hurt me in my liver so bad.”
The result of every fight seems obvious in hindsight, but don’t let that obfuscate what Gaethje accomplished here — not only for himself, but for a classic chapter of tenacious lightweights that won’t go away.
Consider that when Topuria made his professional debut in 2015, Gaethje was already multiple defences into his lightweight title reign with World Series of Fighting, a short-lived circuit that was sold off and restructured two years later. And when Topuria made his UFC debut with a 7-0 record in 2020, Gaethje was already 23 fights into his career and UFC’s interim lightweight champion.
Competing in an extraordinarily physically and mentally demanding sport, the odometer differential between these two was vast. And Gaethje’s been driving city miles, waging a long series of blood-and-guts wars with a generation of 155-pound killers from Dustin Poirier to Khabib Nurmagomedov to Charles Oliveira to Poirier again. He didn’t pick up 15 fight-night bonuses along the way because he approached them with caution.
Gaethje’s breakneck, kill-or-be-killed approach was forever his gift and his curse. It made his fights unmissable. But it also made them fraught with risk that occasionally materialized in devastating defeats. There’s a reason few action fighters rise to be champions and even fewer hang on to their belts for long.
How long can Gaethje hang on to his? That’s the question now as he and the UFC determine next steps. And the possibilities are many.
Meritocratically, it’s Arman Tsarukyan’s turn to challenge for the belt after being ostracized from the title picture for the last 18 months following his 11th-hour pull-out from a championship fight with Islam Makhachev at UFC 311 nearly deep-sixed a card. And of UFC’s top-ranked lightweights, the 29-year-old Georgian ought to be Gaethje’s stiffest challenge.
But perhaps you’ve heard Max Holloway and Conor McGregor are fighting in a few weeks. That’ll happen at 170 pounds, but both are coming up from lightweight and it would make for extremely compelling matchmaking to have the winner serve as Gaethje’s first title defence. It’d certainly be more competitive on paper than a Tsarukyan matchup. You know which one you’re picking if you’re Gaethje.
But then there’s a third option that hung in the air early Monday morning as the UFC began tearing down all it built in Washington over the last several weeks. What if Gaethje’s most vintage performance, the most meaningful and fitting of his career, was his last?
After eking out a win over Rafael Fiziev last March, Gaethje was in no rush to re-enter the octagon, floating a message through his management that if his next fight wasn’t for a title he’d likely retire. And those retirement rumours swirled again in the lead-up to his interim title fight with Paddy Pimblett as he was asked what he might do if he lost.
The speculation was understandably similar in the lead up to this one. If Gaethje had lost, what would’ve been left for him to do? Certainly no one wanted to see a fighter who’s taken as much punishment as Gaethje hang around into his late 30s accepting more if all stakes were removed.
No one less so than his mother, Carolina, who Gaethje said he’d promised a discussion about his future following Sunday’s fight, regardless of result. And as he was interviewed in the octagon following his victory, championship belts hanging over each shoulder, Gaethje said he was staying true to it.
Could he go out on top and walk away? You couldn’t blame him if he did. Remember, it’s efforts like these that he entered this sport on two decades ago. Efforts like these he built his formidable reputation upon round after gruelling round. And an effort like Sunday’s was always how he’d leave it all behind, too.
“I’m going to enjoy this win,” Gaethje said. “I’ve been counted out so bad. In 16 fights in the UFC, I’ve be an underdog at least 11 or 12 times. Every single fight almost. And I’m 9-2 as an underdog. So, I love being in this position.”