Gaethje is both excited and scared coming back from his first knockout loss, and he believes that will make UFC 313 one of his best performances.
Justin Gaethje is set to return to action at UFC 313 after a long break, and in a new Q&A with fans he shared how he’s feeling following the first knockout loss of his career.
In a shocking upset, Gaethje was battered across five rounds and KO’d in the literal last second of his UFC 300 fight against Max Holloway for the BMF belt. Typically it’s Gaethje doing the battering, and few fighters are the same after an encounter with “The Highlight.”
Will Justin be the same after what he went through with Max? Not knowing is the toughest challenge to Gaethje, although he also believes that challenge is pushing him to be the best fighter he can be on March 8th against Dan Hooker.
“This is my first time getting knocked out,” Gaethje said on his YouTube channel. “It’s going to be crazy, I’m actually kind of excited. I’ve done 37 fights, every time is different, but the more experience you have with something, the more comfortable you can become. And this is just a sport where you can never be comfortable. So getting knocked out is a very good reminder of that.”
“I think it’s gonna be scary, my first fight ever [after a KO]. And I’m excited for the adrenaline, the nerves. I think I perform best under pressure, and I can’t lose this fight. So I can’t wait.”
Things could really go in two dramatic directions for Gaethje. He’s said if he gets laid out again like he did at UFC 300, then he’ll lay down his gloves and walk away from the sport. But if he beats Hooker in dramatic fashion, he’ll be right back in the lightweight title shot discussion.
Gaethje has held the interim lightweight championship and vied for the full belt twice, losing to Khabib Nurmagomedov in 2020 and Charles Oliveira in 2022.
“I think Khabib was probably [the toughest fight],” Gaethje said of his hardest bouts. “Even if I performed better, I’m not sure I could have beat him on that night. So that night, when I fought Khabib, he was one of the toughest opponents to date.”
“I wanna fight Makhachev,” he added later when asked about dream match-ups. “He’s the champ, and I do believe that is a better match-up for me than Khabib. But he’s good.”
He may have a chance to prove it with a big win over Dan Hooker at UFC 313. But “The Hangman” doesn’t intend on making it easy … win or lose, he’s said both men are going to end up in the hospital.