Justin Gaethje has hinted that he plans to continue fighting after his stunning upset over Ilia Topuria at the UFC White House card, but there are still plenty of fighters, fans, and critics who believe he should walk away now while he\u2019s on top of the sport.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been well documented that Gaethje\u2019s dream was becoming undisputed UFC lightweight champion and now he\u2019s finally accomplished that goal. But retired UFC welterweight Matt Brown thinks it\u2019s crazy that anybody is telling Gaethje to walk away right now when he\u2019s poised to make arguably the biggest paydays of his entire career.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what we talk about all the time on here \u2014 don\u2019t forget what we\u2019re doing is prize fighting,\u201d Brown said on The Fighter vs. The Writer. \u201cJustin\u2019s value is higher than it\u2019s ever been. Take advantage of this shit while you can.\u201d<\/p>\n
The biggest argument against Gaethje fighting again really comes down to a storybook ending for his career with the win over Topuria in June. He entered that fight as a massive underdog and it almost felt like he was being led like a lamb to the slaughter in that fight.<\/p>\n
But instead, Gaethje survived some tough moments in the fight and then started dishing out his signature brand of punishment as he battered Topuria on the feet and on the ground. After the fourth round ended, Topuria couldn\u2019t continue and the fight was stopped with Gaethje being crowned UFC champion.<\/p>\n
That moment is definitely unforgettable but Brown argues that win really just gives Gaethje the leverage to get more money and potentially avenge a couple of past losses while he\u2019s champion.<\/p>\n
Add to that, Gaethje\u2019s legacy is already solidified as one of the most exciting fighters in the history of the sport, but he\u2019s not quite in the same conversation as fighters like Jon Jones, Khabib Nurmagomedov or Georges St-Pierre as the greatest of all-time.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not in a top five pound-for-pound [all-time] argument,\u201d Brown said. \u201cHe\u2019s not even in a top greatest lightweights argument really. He doesn\u2019t have anything to lose going for it. He\u2019s playing with house money. He goes out and he wins a couple of fights, defends the title against a couple of top guys \u2014 Arman [Tsarukyan] would be a huge one I think. I think that\u2019s a huge notch on the belt. Avenging a loss to either Max [Holloway] or Charles [Oliveira], another huge notch on the belt.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe doesn\u2019t have anything to lose. He loses to those guys, his legacy isn\u2019t any less than it was before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking at the lay of the land at lightweight, Brown points to Tsarukyan as the most worthy contender, but the UFC could easily look towards somebody like Holloway or Oliveira as a potential matchup for Gaethje due to the history they share.<\/p>\n
Brown believes that all of those potential fights are matchups that Gaethje could win and that only adds to his legendary status.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why he\u2019s adamant that Gaethje could take some time off to rest and recover from his fight against Topuria but then he should start lining up opponents in 2027 to defend his title and take home a huge amount of money while doing it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look down the line at the potential matchups, that\u2019s a great lineup for him to go on a little title defense streak and have a whole new legacy,\u201d Brown said. \u201cEverybody not only talking about how he\u2019s must-see TV, and one of the greatest, most exciting fighters of all time, bonus machine, but now he\u2019s got a legacy of title defenses to go on top of that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are winnable fights for him. He didn\u2019t get dominated in those fights. Khabib [Nurmagomedov] is a tough fight for him, I think that\u2019s pretty clear. But those are winnable fights. I say shoot for it. Go for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Listen to new episodes of The Fighter vs. The Writer every Tuesday with audio only versions of the podcast available on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, and iHeartRadio<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Justin Gaethje has hinted that he plans to continue fighting after his stunning upset over Ilia Topuria at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":831875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,701,37036,329,82,640,702],"class_list":["post-831874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-latest-news","tag-mmaf-podcast-network","tag-podcasts","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831874","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=831874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/831875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}