Issue 192

September 2020

After his stunning defeat of Tony Ferguson, Justin Gaethje finds himself in line to fight Khabib and be UFC lightweight champ. but, as he tells, Fighters Only, being number one won’t change him; he’ll still keep it real.

There is just one thing Justin Gaethje wants: to be the best in the world. And following his majestic victory over Tony Ferguson during the coronavirus lockdown, he will now face Khabib Nurmagomedov for the UFC’s lightweight title and then “become the money fight”, and face Conor McGregor.

It could not be better set up for Gaethje, but first he must embrace the controlled chaos that he goes through in camp. Gaethje invited Fighters Only into the inner sanctum for a close look at the body of work that most matters in his career: both in his body, his mind, and his mentors.  

Chaos will affect different fighters in different ways, but few will appear as comfortable in the midst of it as Justin ‘The Highlight’ Gaethje. Never more dangerous than when hurt, the UFC interim lightweight champion is the type of fighter to head towards chaos rather than cower from it and has emerged as the sole survivor from numerous firestorms during the course of his nine-year mixed martial arts career.

Gaethje, now 31, is a fighter both comfortable and fluent in battle. He is no stranger to chaos, which follows him around, going with him from place to place and showing up both when Gaethje expects it and when he does not.

This interview, for instance, was briefly delayed due to the kind of chaos Gaethje tends to attract. Set for a Tuesday, it had to be pushed back 24 hours when Gaethje was caught on the chin by the head of a sparring partner during a wrestling session and required six stitches to close a gash. This accident pushed back the interview and served as a reminder of how things are rarely straightforward with Justin Gaethje.

“It’s good,” he told Fighters Only on the Wednesday after being stitched up. “We were going to the ground and his head hit my chin when we hit the mat. We were grappling. It was just a clash of heads, just a freak accident. I fell down and he fell on top of me and just kept going.

“I’m a bit overweight right now because I’m just enjoying myself. I’ve got a bit of fat on my chin and he cut the fat part. It was actually the first time I’ve ever been cut in practice.”

That this was the first time he had ever been cut in practice will come as a surprise to some, which is perhaps why Gaethje felt the need to point this out. His style, after all, is hardly one people would describe as conservative or safety first. Moreover, few fighters seem to enjoy the idea of a fight quite like the man from Safford, Arizona.

Whether in victory or defeat, Gaethje gives fans everything they would want from a fighter on fight night. He gives them every bit of himself he has to offer and leaves not a piece behind to take home and call his own. Sometimes to his detriment, he tackles opponents as though there is only one way to victory and one type of victory that can fully satisfy him. It ensures he is both dangerous and vulnerable. It guarantees we watch.

“Both my parents are competitive and I’m from a really small place,” he said. “When you’re from a really small place, you’re proud to represent the town and challenge yourself against the city boys and kick their asses. That always felt good.

“It was always just the thrill of competition that I loved and enjoyed. Now that I’m fighting, I’m being given opportunities to better the life of my family. My family still lives in a small town and they’re super proud to have me fighting.”

The competitiveness of Justin Gaethje is by now no secret. All forward motion and violent intent, he was once a star wrestler at Safford High School before moving to mixed martial arts in 2011 and racking up 18 straight wins. In some of those victories, he would display a tendency to make things more difficult than they needed to be simply because he was trying to do more than have his hand raised and have his unbeaten record extended. He was, in the process, also looking to quench both his own appetite and the appetites of fans.

“He’s super competitive,” said Trevor Wittman, Gaethje’s long-time coach. “Anything he does from pool to ping pong, he’s super competitive. I think his energy levels needs that type of burnout. All guys with a high energy level need a challenge. I think, of all the sports growing up, he just fell in love with the one-on-one sport. He was in control and it was up to him. He was the one accountable for his performance.”

In addition to being in control, most fighters want to feel loved. They go in search of this feeling, as well as victory and financial gain, each time they set foot inside the Octagon and often it will be a sound before it is a feeling. It will be the sound of applause, as well as the sound of shouts and screams. It will be the sound of their name being sung both in moments of success and in moments of crisis.

That’s love. It’s also the soundtrack to Justin Gaethje’s career.

“He’s already worried about performances,” added Wittman. “Especially before his two losses, he knew people were paying for tickets and he was going to give them the best fight he’d ever seen. It’s a gift and he’s a giver. Anyone who knows him knows what type of person he is. He gives you time, he talks to you – he doesn’t regard himself as a star.

“He’s not gone ‘showtime’. He’s not changed from his first fight until now and he never will change. He’s just a really good person and a pleasure to work with.”

“No, I won’t change,” Gaethje agreed. “If I was going to change, I would have already started by now. I’d be going down an alternate path. I know this doesn’t last forever and that it’s a really small window but I’m going to do the best I can and create the biggest platform I can so I can make a living for when I’m done doing this.”

The search for adoration can become addictive, of course, and often fighters known as fan favorites will end up suffering as a result of the very thing that brought them love in the first place. They will continue to give and give – giving only to others in the name of entertainment – until they have very little left to take away for themselves and their family. 

They will give until they can give no more and until the only sensible option available to them is to retire, still very much loved but half the fighter and man they used to be.

This was for some time the fear with Gaethje, as giving a fighter as any in mixed martial arts. Critics, who saw little method to his madness, suggested his career, though thrilling, would ultimately be short-lived and that back-to-back defeats to the likes of Eddie Alvarez and Dustin Poirier were sure-fire signs of his punch resistance being on the wane and his decision-making, at the top level, not being quite what it should be. 

One or two more of them, they said, and Gaethje would be consigned to the scrapheap, remembered fondly by those who enjoyed watching him entertain, yet struggling to remember much of his own career.

Gaethje, though, has always been conscious of this. In fact, when joining the UFC in 2017 as an undefeated fighter he revealed that he felt defeat was inevitable and that his aim was simply to be an exciting fighter who pleases the fans rather than a contender with designs on one day graduating to world champion. This meant his trainer, Trevor Wittman, would need to be there for him when necessary. And he was.

“There was one time when I was maybe going to have to fight without him (Wittman) and it was three weeks before the fight and he said, ‘I want you to go and prepare as if you aren’t going to have me in the corner,’” Gaethje recalled. “I came back and said that under these circumstances with this short amount of time, I wouldn’t fight.

“He’s the only one who has seen every one of my workouts and I know that I cannot trust myself or save myself. Safety is never going to be my number one concern when I’m in a fight. So he’s the only one who is around me capable of picking up on the signs. I wouldn’t even trust my mum or dad to make that decision for me. They’re not around me in those same scenarios. Trevor is there every day and he’s been around the game forever. I’d be a fool to not give him that kind of power. He knows what he’s watching, and he knows me. I’ve so far never been in that situation, but I know he would be the perfect person to protect me from me.”

As well as protecting Gaethje from Gaethje, his coach is the one responsible for teaching him, guiding him, and improving him. Together, they figure out the game plan ahead of time and then look to execute it on fight night. Sometimes this game plan will appear layered, convoluted, and will require much in the way of concentration and discipline. Other times, however, it will seem as though gameplan is to Justin Gaethje a dirty word.

Defeats to Alvarez and Poirier, for example, were in the end both attributed to him losing concentration and discipline and veering from the game plan. They were, he admits, situations in which he allowed his faith in his punch power and desire to please others to trump the greater need to stay controlled and alert and follow his mission through to its natural end.

Some believed these performances highlighted his limitations at the top level and said the blueprint was now available for others to follow and replicate. Gaethje, however, saw the losses only as blips, events that could have been avoidable. Better yet, they were to him catalysts for change.

“I said after I fought Poirier that I had five wars left – five all-out wars like the Dustin Poirier and Eddie Alvarez fights,” he said. “But I wouldn’t consider my last four fights wars. I didn’t take any damage or anything like that.

“I understand that I had got complacent in previous fights and got a little too comfortable because I thought I was kicking their ass. I thought they were done. But at the highest level, you realize these guys want it just as bad as you do. I’ve fought other guys who didn’t want it as bad as me but now they all do. I have just become more focused and with that and the knockout power I’ve got the potential to knock them out is always there.”

Since losing for the first time in his pro career, then suffering the same fate in his next fight, Gaethje has successfully regrouped, adapted, and come back stronger. He has defeated James Vick, Edson Barboza, Donald Cerrone and Tony Ferguson in consecutive fights and done so without sacrificing what made him such a special fighter to watch in the first place. He has calmed down and adjusted, no question, yet three first-round stoppages, three Performance of the Night bonuses and two Fight of the Night bonuses suggest that all of what made Justin Gaethje known to fans as ‘The Highlight’ remains very much on show.

“The craziest thing is people all of a sudden think I’m getting smart,” he said. “But these are skills I’ve always had and have been holding on to for a long time. I could have made that change a long time ago but that was a choice. That’s one thing I really put a lot of time and effort behind.

“We’re in control of our actions, our emotions and our choices, and so I just made the choice to just go out there and have fun. I was winning and I was having fun and I just consistently saw people break and thought I could always keep doing that. But I couldn’t, so I had to go back to the drawing board. I had to make the choice to fight differently. I wasn’t sure it would work but my coach is great and, like I said, I’ve had these skills forever.”

When a fighter can combine the right kind of skills with the right kind of temperament there is potential for a lot of damage – damage of the right kind – to be done. This has proven to be the case with Gaethje, especially of late.

“His focus before his last performances was to be the most exciting fighter in the world,” said Wittman. “When he got hit, he wouldn’t box, he would fight you. That’s how I look at Justin. If you want to be the most exciting fighter in the world you have to pick how many fights you have left in you. He said he had five fights left and that’s what we decided. But he asked, ‘Coach, if I go out there and take fewer punches will I allow him to have more fights?’ That was his decision. When he went out and had three first-round finishes I said, ‘All right, we can extend that number.’

“You have to have a vision and a goal and go and face it. I think it was him that made those adjustments. Justin was always sharp in the gym. People say he takes too many punches, but he’s never been concussed. He’s never asked me, ‘What round is it?’ He was also meeting punches with his forehead and biting down.

“He’s always been so coachable, and he’s always trusted me. When you have a bond and you both trust each other, have love and care for each other, it’s very cool.”

“There’s not an emotion in my body other than wanting to go out there and fight,” Gaethje said. “There’s no fear and no nervousness. I have to control my nerves and my emotions and I’m constantly trying to make sure I’m clear-headed and that if I want to fight at my best I have to be that way. I have taken the time and effort to hone that. I wrestled for almost 20 years against the highest-level guys and I learned to train that. Most thoughts and most emotions, in that scenario, are going to be harmful in the chaos. It doesn’t just come overnight, though. I’ve been this way for a long time now.”

A pro for nine years, Gaethje is on the verge of at last making the kind of money from the sport most fighters can only dream of making. In a division rich in talent and marquee names, he hangs somewhere near the top and knows that fights against the likes of Khabib Nurmagomedov, the UFC lightweight champion, and Conor McGregor, the biggest name in the sport, will be both hard-earned and life-changing.

“I actually have the option for either one of those right now,” Gaethje said. “The Khabib match is absolutely number one on my list. I want to be recognized as the number one in the world and Conor doesn’t do that for me. Khabib is the best in the world. He beats McGregor nine out of ten times.

“When I beat Khabib, McGregor would be great. I’d love that. My goal is to become the money fight, not chase the money fight. When I beat Khabib, I am the money fight. Whether I fight McGregor or not, it doesn’t matter. Sure, that would be more money, but once I beat Khabib I can fight whoever I want and it will still be a pretty big fight.”

Justin Gaethje will always be known as ‘The Highlight’. His reel is already out there, his legacy as a fan favorite secure. But now, with adjustments made, his goal is to be known as ‘The Greatest’.