Gaethje (26-5) looks to claim a second interim lightweight title in the UFC this Saturday in Las Vegas, kicking off the promotion’s new broadcast deal with Paramount+. As he put it at media day on Wednesday, speaking to journalists from around the world, including Cageside Press: “I know I’m the most consistent guy and the most exciting guy, and that’s probably why I’m here.”
As for Pimblett’s words: “I certainly don’t take anything away from these comments,” Gaethje said. “25 minutes in. At this point, what he says doesn’t matter. All that tells me is that hopefully he’ll be overconfident, and the last thing you can do in this sport is have false confidence. He’d be crazy to think and not know that I’m one of the most dangerous guys he’s ever fought.”
For Gaethje, a big difference is the number of five-round fights the pair are booked for. “I’ve been scheduled for a five-round fight at least twenty times in my career. Certainly not for him. It’s a different story.”
Pimblett has played five rounds three times in his career, losing two of them. That was back in his Cage Warriors days; he’s never been in the UFC for 25 minutes.
“You don’t know what you don’t know. He wasn’t there.” Gaethje reiterated the difference in experience, adding that it’s “a different training, a different mentality, a different tactic. I want to take him to the fourth or fifth round. I want to do the same thing, turn his face into mincemeat. I’ve done it before, with high-caliber fighters, but this guy has a lot of momentum right now, a lot of confidence, and those are some of the most dangerous variables I’m going to face when I get in there.”
“The Highlight,” a former WSOF lightweight champion who is now 37, was asked during media day how many fights he has left in him. “How many more fights do I have? Not a damn clue. One at a time.”
However, Gaethje once claimed that he once had five “wars” in him, back at UFC Philadelphia, where he knocked out James Vick. Counting his fights with Charles Oliveira, Max Holloway and Michael Chandler, “I think I have two left,” he said in closing his performance on Wednesday.
Watch Justin Gaethje’s full UFC 324 media day appearance above.
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