Justin Gaethje knew the craziness of MMA would always give him a glimmer of hope to accomplish the one thing he never did.
Gaethje cashed in on that hope with an eye-opening upset win over Ilia Topuria in the main event of UFC White House. “The Highlight” was a two-time interim title holder, and previous two-time undisputed title challenger — where he got finished by Khabib Nurmagomedov and Charles Oliveira — and was on the wrong end of one of the biggest knockouts in UFC history against Max Holloway at UFC 300.
When asked by his coach Trevor Wittman about his doubts on What Hones You, Gaethje said he’d be lying if he didn’t have any.
“I mean, it doesn’t sound practical to say I never thought that it was gone,” Gaethje said. “Because going through those two fights, and then the Max Holloway fight after that, it made it real difficult.
“Before the Max fight I was on a, what, two or three-fight winning streak? I had knocked out Dustin Poirier. I was definitely planning on fighting for the belt next. I think Oliveira had [the shot], that’s when Topuria came up to lightweight and they made that fight. So I was like, shit, that kind of throws a wrench in everything.”
Gaethje battled back from his loss to Holloway to defeat Rafael Fiziev, then deliver a lopsided decision win over Paddy Pimblett in the main event of UFC 324 in January to become a two-time interim lightweight champion.
Getting to the spot he was in to share the stage with Topuria was not a surprise because Gaethje believed it was just a matter of time before things came together.
“I never really lost hope,” Gaethje explained. “I always knew that I was performing better than I had, I knew that my body still felt as good as it ever did.
“I knew that this sport was crazy, and I just had to put wins together. And, yeah, that was the mindset.”
