Justin Gaethje: Why Are You Sleeping on the Best Lightweight in the World?
Content Provided by Scott Harris, Bleacher Report
We can work out the details later. For now, just know that Justin Gaethje is the greatest lightweight on this planet, and he is hereby inviting you to watch him paste Melvin Guillard this Saturday at World Series of Fighting 15.
“Do I think people are sleeping on me? Absolutely…I do think I’m the best lightweight in the world,” Gaethje proclaims. “As long as he shows up, it’s going to be a good fight for me, for World Series of Fighting and for MMA and for the fans.”
Gaethje is aware that you have a lot on your plate, what with UFC 180 and Bellator 131 and it being the weekend and you being a normal person and all. He knows Guillard, with 21 career knockouts and a redemption story to unfurl, may have something to say about his claims. So might other people.
But coming into the highest-profile contest of his career, the 25-year-old WSOF lightweight champion (the only person to ever wear the belt, by the way) has a pretty unassailable track record to match his confidence. Extremely powerful in the striking, ground and clinch phases, Gaethje (12-0) has only gone the distance once in his pro career. He’s more than a prospect now, and if any other fighter has a problem with that, well, they’ll probably meet sooner or later.
“They can call my bluff when I get to fight the top 10,” he said in an exclusive interview with Bleacher Report. “Someone’s going to have to take that fight. I feed off that energy.”
But for now, Guillard. Gaethje has no waver in his voice when he tells you that the manner of Saturday’s action is not in doubt, and neither is he.
“He’s fast and he hits hard, but he doesn’t like going deep into fights. He’s not willing to get injured in there,” Gaethje said of his opponent. “I’m going to knock him out. If he gives me his back, I’m not even going to choke him. I’m going to knock him out.”
Yeah, it sounds like fast talk, easy to let run right out of your ears, especially in this post-Chael society we all share here. But when you glance at Gaethje (pronounced “GAGE-ee”) on paper, differences start to emerge. Ten of his fights—that’s 83 percent—have ended in a knockout victory. That’s unusual. And he’s not crushing cans, either; wins have come against notables like J.Z. Cavalcante, Dan Lauzon and Drew Fickett.
Like a lot of other MMA fighters, he first got some shine as a college wrestler (he wrestled for the University of Northern Colorado and is now based at the Denver-area Grudge Training Center, where he used to train with Guillard). When he found he had power in his fists, he found he had a career as a pro fighter.
But Gaethje transcends the heavy-handed wrestler stamp. His stopping power is pretty remarkable. And at such a young age, he’s still improving, throwing more combinations and body shots to complement his formidable head-hunting.
“My timing is going to be what people realize most in this fight,” Gaethje said. “And with Melvin, people will realize I don’t move back from a punch. I can take shots and give shots.”
Speaking of business, with three fights left on his WSOF contract and this “best in the world” mantra in play, questions about the UFC are unavoidable. But that’s one of the beauties of being 25.
“I don’t care about [the UFC],” he said. “I don’t even know if I have a champion’s clause. I have three fights left on my contract and I’m going to fight those fights.”
So the jawing is justified, then? Time will tell, as it always does, but right now it seems it just might be. What adds the spice in the meantime is not only the raw potential converting into kinetic energy before our eyes, it’s that he understands the business end of the game, too, based on his talk. He knows what people want out there.
“I know plenty of wrestlers who are 15-0 and going nowhere,” Gaethje said. “This is a making-money business, and the only way to make money is knocking people out. Lying on someone? That’s pathetic to me. You gotta drop a bomb.”