{"id":774523,"date":"2026-07-02T02:11:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T02:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/774523\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T02:11:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T02:11:11","slug":"justin-gaethje-expresses-support-for-ilia-topuria-while-his-coach-trevor-wittman-advises-the-former-ufc-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/774523\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Gaethje expresses support for Ilia Topuria, while his coach Trevor Wittman advises the former UFC champion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Justin Gaethje has taken a number of fans by surprise with his unexpected display of support for archrival and ex-UFC lightweight kingpin, Ilia Topuria. <\/p>\n

Justin Gaethje and Trevor Wittman have addressed former two-division\u00a0UFC<\/a> champion Ilia Topuria<\/a>‘s first MMA defeat, which happened to come at the hands of Gaethje.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On one hand, Gaethje displayed his support for Topuria, asserting that the Georgian-Spaniard fighter is capable of defeating anyone in the lightweight division.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Gaethje’s longtime head coach Trevor Wittman expressed his respect for what Topuria has achieved in the sport.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Wittman emphasized that “El Matador” doesn’t deserve an immediate title rematch against Gaethje. He also put forth some advice for the former champion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Justin Gaethje finds himself pursued by lightweight elites, while an immediate rematch against Ilia Topuria seems unlikely<\/p>\n

Ex-BMF champion and two-time interim UFC lightweight titlist Justin Gaethje<\/a> sent shockwaves across the mixed martial arts world by becoming the first fighter to beat former UFC featherweight and lightweight champ Ilia Topuria.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gaethje ended Topuria’s lightweight title reign by stopping him via fourth-round TKO after a back-and-forth war at UFC Freedom 250 on June 14. Topuria suffered considerable facial damage in that fight.<\/p>\n

It, in turn, has led many to speculate that an immediate title rematch between them may be unlikely and that Gaethje could defend his UFC lightweight title against another contender instead.<\/p>\n

Speaking of which, fighters like Charles Oliveira and Arman Tsarukyan have been lobbying for a title shot against Gaethje since his championship victory.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Justin Gaethje shows support for Ilia Topuria; his MMA coach Trevor Wittman imparts advice to “El Matador”<\/p>\n

On episode No. 17 of the What Hones You Show podcast, on the Trevor Wittman-founded ONX Sports’ YouTube channel, his star pupil Justin Gaethje and Wittman himself appeared to acknowledge that Ilia Topuria is a skilled competitor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Additionally, ex-UFC welterweight champion and current middleweight contender Kamaru Usman<\/a> — who’s Gaethje’s training partner — echoed similar sentiments.<\/p>\n

Gaethje, for his part, implied that he doesn’t hold ill will toward his archrival, Topuria, their intense rivalry<\/a> notwithstanding. The veteran American fighter showed his support for his younger rival and stated:\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I hope nothing but the best for him. He’s very, very skilled. He’s got the skills to beat any of these guys. I’m excited to watch it.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Wittman reiterated his and Gaethje’s stance that Topuria doesn’t deserve an immediate rematch against him. Claiming that a fighter’s biggest opponent is oneself, Wittman gave Topuria the following advice:\u00a0<\/p>\n

“And I feel like Ilia made that mistake. Do I think he comes out better in the rematch? I’m not even gonna say that because I don’t think he deserves that.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wittman added, “I think he needs to go back, get on a win spree, and recover himself because that was a detrimental loss — not because of the way he lost; it’s the damage that was done.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Also, Wittman seemed to suggest that Topuria would have to internalize what he experienced and then bring it out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Watch Gaethje and Wittman discuss Ilia Topuria and more below (*comments at the 12:00 and 20:00-minute marks of the video):\u00a0<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Justin Gaethje has taken a number of fans by surprise with his unexpected display of support for archrival…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":774524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,3262,9577,638,82,267457,640,252100],"class_list":["post-774523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-ilia-topuria","tag-justin-gaethje","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-trevor-wittman","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-freedom-250-topuria-vs-gaethje"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774523","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=774523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}