Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC
Interim UFC lightweight champion Justin Gaethje told reporters he wants to make Khabib Nurmagomedov quit at UFC 254.
UFC 254 is just around the corner. On October 24th, at Abu Dhabi’s Flash Forum, the UFC’s lightweight title will be on the line when reigning champion Khabib Nurmagomedov takes on interim champ Justin Gaethje.
Nurmagomedov, Gaethje, and title fight alternate Michael Chandler, recently spoke to the media about the upcoming event and how they saw the big fight going.
Gaethje told those gathered that his confidence was at an all time high and that this spelled trouble for ‘The Eagle’.
“My confidence is probably my biggest factor right now paired with the power that I possess paired with the coach that I have,” Gaethje said (per MMA Fighting). “That’s a dangerous combination.
“And I don’t care if I win or lose at the end of the day. As long as I make my family happy, as long as I’m proud of my performance, then it doesn’t matter. That’s what makes me most dangerous. I don’t know if he’s fought somebody like that.”
Gaethje then made it clear that he didn’t feel the 28-0 Dagestani was by no means indestructible.
“Anybody can go to sleep,” he said. “He’s a fool if he doesn’t think he can go to sleep.”
Among Gaethje’s other claims was that he would stack up well in the wrestling department versus Nurmagomedov. “I’ve wrestled my whole life. I wrestle a lot in there. A huge part of wrestling is not being able to let someone take you down and hold you down. That was my main focus my whole life when I wrestled. I never had a great offense but you could not take me down, you could not hold me down. I’m going to use that.”
Even though he’s confident about not getting taken down Gaethje said that if Nurmagomedov can get him to the mat, he wants to make sure he punishes him once he gets there.
“If I do get taken down, I’ve got to make him work like his life depends on it. If he does take me down, I need to make sure that I threaten him with something up the middle that is going to make him hesitate the next time. That’s what I’ll be in there doing.”
No matter where the fight goes, though, Gaethje was emphatic that he wasn’t just looking for a win at UFC 254; he wants domination and to do something no one has come close to doing before.
“I’m going to try to beat him into submission. I want him to quit. I want him to know I’m the superior athlete, the superior man. That’s the goal of this game.”
UFC 254 kicks off at 2 p.m. ET on October 24th. In addition to Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Justin Gaethje, the main card includes former UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker vs. Jared Cannonier, Alexander Volkov vs. Walt Harris and Islam Makhachev vs. former UFC lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos.