YouTube channel<\/a>. \u201cThis is my last chance. And this opportunity to finish my career off the way that I want to is everything that I could ask for. I fight Paddy for the interim championship, win that, and then I get to fight Ilia. He, right now, is the baddest man in my division, and some consider across the board. So, what an opportunity to finish this career out exactly how I\u2019ve fought the whole time.<\/p>\n\u201cI fought the highest competition, I fought the best. I have not been perfect every night. I think people \u2014 it\u2019s hard for people to understand that. I\u2019ve had 38 fights, 31 professional, and these are 15-minute or 25-minute time slots, and it\u2019s impossible to be perfect every time. So, the challenge right now is for me to be perfect for 25 minutes, seven weeks from now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former World Series of Fighting lightweight champion has had plenty of success in the UFC in his eight years in the promotion. \u201cThe Highlight\u201d beat Tony Ferguson for an interim lightweight title in 2020, and is a former \u201cBMF\u201d title holder as well. However, despite two previous attempts to win it, the undisputed lightweight title has eluded Gaethje, and he knows that is what he\u2019s fighting for come January.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m planning on fighting perfect, and when I fight perfect, I think that you have to get lucky to beat me,\u201d Gaethje said. \u201cBut the challenge is still ahead. I have to be perfect that night. There\u2019s a lot of things, a lot of variables. It\u2019s one day at a time for now. I worked my ass off last week, I\u2019m going to work my ass off this week, and these days are going to add up. I\u2019m going to be very, very ready, and very prepared, and very confident in my ability to knock Paddy out and earn my title shot on the UFC White House card. That\u2019s my plan. And I think if I could do that, that\u2019s the best way I can ever imagine finishing off my career.\u201d<\/p>\n
And as for what comes after that? Well, Gaethje plans to cross that bridge when it comes to it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I beat Ilia, we\u2019ll see what happens after that,\u201d Gaethje said. \u201cI\u2019m not worried about that. Right now it\u2019s Paddy.\u201d<\/p>\n
UFC 324 takes place on Jan. 24 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Justin Gaethje knows that the end is near. In January, Gaethje takes on Paddy Pimblett in the main…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-349621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}