UFC: Justin Gaethje tells Conor McGregor ‘you go through me’ with eyes still on Khabib payday
- ‘If Conor wants to go past me he has to go through me. That’s the only way to legitimise the process,’ says Gaethje
- ‘All I ask is that I have a say in my destiny. The politics come into play but I hope to avoid that’
Fourth-ranked lightweight Justin Gaethje sits on the verge of a possible title shot in arguably the UFC’s most stacked division but he says he might never have got there if he hadn’t learned one specific lesson.
How to lose.
“With losses you have to own them and I have,” Gaethje said. “That experience is a huge factor in me being where I am today.”
The 31-year-old American began his UFC career with a win which took his overall record in the sport to 18-0 before he suffered successive losses to former champion Eddie “The Underground King” Alvarez (30-7, one no contest) and then one-time interim champ Dustin “The Diamond” Poirier (25-6, one no contest). He picked up fight of the night bonuses for his efforts in each but the real reward, said Gaethje, was that the losses forced him to take apart his whole fight game.
“I used to fight a certain way and I was undefeated. I lost my 25th fight – seven amateurs and 18 professionals,” said Gaethje. “I’d never fallen before that. How do you fix something that’s not broken? I couldn’t even process that there might have been a problem. Obviously it was there. But you’re not going to change something when you are winning.
“My coach had been telling me for a long time to fight a little bit smarter but, again, it wasn’t broken. He couldn’t even say with confidence what was wrong. But we started working together on my feet, that’s what he does best and the feet are the most important part of fighting.”