Justin
Gaethje has revealed that a showdown with Conor
McGregor is his top choice for his next bout.
Gaethje, who won the
Ultimate Fighting Championship lightweight title by beating
Ilia
Topuria at
UFC Freedom 250, prefers the McGregor matchup over getting
revenge against Max
Holloway and Charles
Oliveira.
Justin Gaethje favors Conor McGregor over rematches with Max
Holloway and Charles Oliveira
In a recent interview, Gaethje explained why he has little interest
in revisiting fights with Holloway and Oliveira, who previously
finished him in title bouts. Holloway scored a buzzer-beater KO
against Gaethje at UFC
300 to win the BMF title, while Oliveira submitted him in his
second attempt at undisputed lightweight gold.
Nevertheless, with Topuria finishing both “Blessed” and “do
Bronxs,” Gaethje isn’t interested in rematches. Rather, he’s eyeing
a bout with former two-division champ McGregor.
“Damn, there’s really no one,” Gaethje said. “It would have been
Oliveira or Holloway, but since Topuria beat them, I’m going to go
ahead and justify it to myself like I got them back. So, I guess
McGregor. Fun to shut him up.”
McGregor returned to the Octagon following a five-year hiatus to
face Holloway at
UFC 329, but the fight ended in little over a minute as the
Irishman suffered a knee injury, prompting an anticlimactic referee
stoppage. With one fight left on his current contract, he’s
targeting his final UFC bout for the summer of 2027.