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UFC 254 title challenger Justin Gaethje opens up on how much his parents helped him become the man he is now and how he’ll repay them with the earnings from Saturday’s fight.
If you were about to potentially become a multi-millionaire off a hard night’s work, I’m sure many of you would say you’d take the money and retire.
Not Justin Gaethje, who faces UFC Lightweight champion, Khabib Nurmagomedov, this Saturday (Oct. 24, 2020) in Abu Dhabi. Gaethje plans to retire … his parents. Carolina and John Ray Gaethje will be one of the tiny handful of people allowed into the “Fight Island” bubble, something Gaethje demanded of UFC and the promotion allowed.
At the UFC 253 pre-fight press conference, Gaethje talked about them and how good it felt to repay them with the trip … and an opportunity for his mother to retire early with no money worries.
“My parents have never been flown international,” Gaethje said. “They got to fly business class, they’ve never flown business class. My dad retired a little over a year ago, he worked 37 years in a copper mine. My mom, she’s going to retire … this fight starts, the bell rings at the beginning, then I will secure that she’ll retire after this fight. And she’s been working 35 years.
“They’ve never had a chance to fly international,” he continued. “Every bit of money they had went to me and my brother and my sister, giving us opportunities. We were 2 hours from any city. Going school clothing shopping was a vacation for us. We’d get up go to wresting tournaments two to three hours away, sometimes we’d stay the night. And they’d take financial hits every time we did that. Nothing is better on earth than being able to repay that.”
As for whether having them in the arena during the fight would help him? Gaethje indicated it would not.
“And for them to be here… when I step into the Octagon, nothing matters,” he said. “They’re not there. My coach Trevor Wittman is there, that’s the only voice I can hear. And that’s all that matters to me. But, I’m very happy that they get to experience this.”
In an earlier interview with TSN, Gaethje revealed just how involved his parents were in making sure he made the right decisions growing up … down to his mother having Justin drug tested every week.
“Until you’re 18, you don’t have the ability to make the choices that you should be making,” he said. “I’m glad she drug tested me every week because I wasn’t in a position to not make terrible choices.
“My life has been organized and planned for me in a sense since I was a child,” he continued. “I had practice at three o’clock, and I had to show up. I had practice at six o’clock for another sport, and I had to show up and they always made sure I was there.”
MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC 254 fight card right here, starting with the early ESPN+ “Prelims” matches online, which are scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. ET, then the remaining undercard balance on ESPN 2/ESPN+ at 12 p.m. ET, before the PPV main card start time at 2 p.m. ET on ESPN+.
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