UFC 324: Justin Gaethje still chasing elusive world title despite incredible resume

While MMA fans shouldn’t be surprised why action legend Justin Gaethje is nicknamed “The Highlight,” after 14 unforgettable walks in the Octagon over the past eight years as a former UFC interim lightweight champion and BMF champion, the origin of the nickname dates back to 2011.

Gaethje, who was just two months removed from concluding a Division I All-American run as a wrestler at the University of Northern Colorado, was 21 years old for his professional MMA debut against future Bellator MMA and UFC veteran Kevin Croom at Ring of Fire 41 in Broomfield, Colorado.

“I had only struggled [before] and I had never been punched or taken a punch in my life,” Gaethje told CBS Sports on Tuesday. “I chose [Croom] upwards and [Quinton] ‘Carnage’ [Jackson]-an esque body slammed him. He slept for 10 minutes and got upset. I hate telling this story because it’s embarrassing for him, but if he could push a button and switch sides with me, he sure would.”

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Gaethje, who reportedly needed just 61 seconds to finish off Croom by punching him in the face, was named “The Highlight” that night by the event’s promoter. And nearly 15 years later, as 37-year-old Gaethje (26-5) prepares for his final race in an elusive full UFC championship When he faces Paddy Pimblett (23-3) on Saturday for the interim 155-pound title in the main event of UFC 324 in Las Vegas, neither his mindset nor his ability to create violent, viral moments has changed.

“I hope Paddy pisses himself in front of millions of people on Saturday,” Gaethje said.

The fighting career of Gaethje, who grew up in Safford, Arizona, was as unique as any in the modern era of the sport.

Even before he had fully evolved skill-wise and technically as a professional fighter, he was finding success (and slowly building his name among die-hard fans) simply by outlasting his opponents in one all-out brawl after another. In his 11th professional fight, he won the first World Series of Fighting (later PFL) lightweight title and made five unforgettable title defenses.

In 2017, Gaethje brought his 18-0 record to the UFC in the main event of “The Ultimate Fighter: Redemption” finale in Las Vegas against veteran lightweight Michael Johnson. The result was nearly 10 minutes of carnage highlighted by momentum shifts so crazy and dramatic that they resembled a scene from the movie “Rocky” more than a typical UFC fight.

Gaethje, who bounced twice from being nearly unconscious, rallied to stop Johnson late in the second round and cemented his iconic UFC debut by landing his patented backflip on the top of the Octagon wall.

“For me personally, I think Michael Johnson was my favorite [fight]” Gaethje said. “He was ranked No. 5 at the time and it was the first time I came to the UFC and fought in front of a crowd like that. Proving that I was the best in the world and that I was top five in the world was a great honor for me and something I never grew out of. I’ve been in the top five since 2017. We’ve seen guys come and go and I’ve been there the whole time.”

Not only did Gaethje prove he belonged despite committing to a fighting style that seemed anything but sustainable in the long run, but the victory kicked off an insane run of consistently great fights that left many fans and critics debating the same question: Is it too much to declare that Justin Gaethje is the greatest action fighter in the history of MMA, if not all combat sports?

“No, it’s not [too much]”, UFC President and CEO Dana White told CBS Sports on Wednesday. “[Gaethje] is never in a bad fight. The child is always exciting and full of action.”

Being exciting usually doesn’t get you far in the UFC, especially against elite competition. And even though Gaethje’s name value was still buzzing from the savagery of the Johnson fight, he would discover a lesson in humility in his next two fights when “The Highlight” finally met two other lightweight legends, Eddie Alvarez and Dustin Poirier, both of whom could withstand Gaethje’s unyielding offensive onslaught without laying down.

“When I was young and I hadn’t lost, I just said I was going to go through these guys and try to kill them. They could never resist my pressure,” Gaethje said. “Then I started fighting the best guys in the world and I had to realize I had to use different variables to win.”

Although Gaethje’s back-to-back fights against Alvarez and Poirier would only continue his streak of Fight of the Year contenders, he lost both fights via late, brutal stoppages due to the accumulation of damage he had sustained. The fallout would lead to a turning point in Gaethje’s career following a series of conversations with longtime coach Trevor Wittman that forced Gaethje to understand that fighting smart and avoiding mistakes was just as important as aggression and attitude.

Gaethje, who was careful to emphasize that he agreed to change his tactics but not his action mentality, went on an immediate four-fight knockout winning streak that culminated in the 2020 dismantling of Tony Ferguson at UFC 249 that saw Gaethje end his opponent’s 12-fight winning streak and win the interim lightweight title.

“Justin has grown so much as a fighter. He’s gotten a lot wiser and smarter,” Wittman told the “UFC Countdown” cameras during a recent tour of his ONX Sports gym in Colorado. “When his goal was, ‘I want to be the most exciting fighter in the world,’ he lived by that. Then he wanted to go for a title run and we had to adapt to his goal. Every time I asked him his goal, he would say, ‘I want to be a champion but I want to make sure that if someone pays for an event, they remember my fight.'”

But even though Gaethje managed to become an elite fighter without compromising his barbaric ethics, clearing that final hurdle to become a full-fledged UFC champion wasn’t meant to be. Gaethje would twice fight for the lightweight crown and twice succumb to submissions in disappointing losses to Khabib Nurmagomedov in 2020 and to Charles Oliveira for the vacant title in 2022.

Gaethje, who would bounce back in 2023 by avenging the loss to Poirier with a knockout victory at UFC 291 to win the symbolic BMF title, still believes his surefire Hall of Fame career remains incomplete without a lightweight title and that’s the reason he’s making this latest run.

“Of course I have to do it UFC 324: Justin Gaethje still chasing elusive world title despite incredible resume in my body [of work]”, Gaethje said. “I want to be the best in the world and prove that I am the best in the world. People need to understand how crazy this sport is. It is the most intriguing sport in the world because anything can happen at any time. When a [football] the team leads 42-10, there is no chance that the [other] the team returns. But when I was leading 4-0 [in rounds] against Tony Ferguson, there was still a chance he could knock me out.”

Although Gaethje enters the Pimblett fight on a somewhat rejuvenated streak after winning three of his last four matches (including two hard-fought decisions over contender Rafael Fiziev), it was the lone loss during that stretch – a one-punch knockout at the hands of Max Holloway with one second remaining in the fifth round of their BMF title fight at UFC 300 in 2024 – that proved to be his true “Welcome to the UFC’s Humbling Moment, despite being 13 fights into its run.

That’s why Gaethje did nothing but show respect ahead of UFC 324 for the danger his opponent poses after he failed to do the same inside the cage against Holloway.

“This is my first time tackling this game because it’s just for fun,” Gaethje said. “I love what I do and I was just going to go in there to fight rather than understanding how dangerous what I’m doing was. I always convinced myself that they were going to kill me and I was always ready to kill them and that just wasn’t where I was in that fight. It was a moment where I came to Jesus and I better take it seriously, especially because those were the most severe repercussions I’ve experienced.

“That’s the only time I’ve ever been eliminated and I know how damaging it was to my family and I don’t ever want to put them through that again.”

Even though Wittman has publicly stated that Gaethje will retire if he loses to Pimblett, those are words that Gaethje says never came out of his mouth and are currently not part of his plans. After being an underdog in 10 of his 14 UFC fights, Gaethje takes on that role again against Pimblett and believes that not only will he regain the interim title on Saturday, but it will prepare him for a fight at the White House in June against full champion Ilia Topuria or the winner of the March 7 BMF title rematch between two fighters who had already beaten him: Holloway and Oliveira.

“I’m happy to be the underdog and I’m happy to fight someone that confident with that much momentum behind him, because one thing you have to understand in this match is I don’t care about your confidence, you better be perfect,” Gaethje said. “And he’s going to make mistakes and I’m going to take advantage of his mistakes. I’ve said this before but I don’t intend to be alive after Saturday night. I have to tell myself that he’s going to kill me so I can step into my most primal place.

“I love the pressure, I love the moments and I love the adrenaline – it’s the best drug in the world.”

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