Justin Gaethje wonders if he ‘pissed someone off’ as he vents frustration over not being booked to fight
Justin Gaethje doesn’t know why he isn’t being booked to fight.
At UFC 254, Gaethje suffered a submission loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov for the lightweight title. After the fight, “The Highlight” said he wanted to make a quick turnaround but he still hasn’t fought and hasn’t been booked to fight.
Not only has he not been booked to fight, but some key lightweight fights have been made in Charles Oliveira vs Michael Chandler for the vacant belt, Tony Ferguson vs Beneil Dariush, as well as Dustin Poirier and Conor McGregor, likely having their trilogy this summer. For Gaethje, he still doesn’t know why he hasn’t been booked to fight given he has an entertaining style and a fan-favorite fighter.
“Who knows, man. I can’t talk about it a lot right now,” Gaethje said to Full Reptile recently. “I’m sure me talking about it is the reason I’m here in the past. Who knows? Maybe I pissed someone off, I don’t know. All I know is since I was 12, 13 years old, I listened to Dana White do his interviews and explain what he wanted in a fighter, and I’m that motherf****r. If I get disrespected, it’s gonna be hurtful because I really bought into what that man talked about.
“So yeah, it’ll hurt because I feel like I’m a company man from day one,” Gaethje continued. “I don’t ever wanna go anywhere else, I don’t ever want to fight anywhere else. But my principles are the most important thing to me, so we’ll see what happens.”
Before the loss to Nurmagomedov, Justin Gaethje was on a four-fight winning streak as he beat Tony Ferguson by fifth-round TKO and knocked out Donald Cerrone, Edson Barboza, and James Vick in the first round. He also beat Michael Johnson in the UFC and is the former WSOF lightweight champion.
