While things are beginning to fall into place for most of the
top-ranked competitors throughout the UFC’s lightweight division,
Justin
Gaethje remains in limbo.
With Khabib
Nurmagomedov’s retirement finally official, the promotion
announced that Charles
Oliveira would face Michael
Chandler for the vacant 155-pound belt at UFC 262 in May.
Meanwhile, a trilogy between Dustin
Poirier and Conor
McGregor appears imminent, and Beneil
Dariush will lock horns with Tony
Ferguson on the UFC 262 undercard.
At the moment, Gaethje doesn’t seem to have a clear direction in
the weight class.
“Who knows, man,” Gaethje told Full Reptile. “I can’t talk about it
a lot right now—I’m sure me talking about it [in the past] is the
reason I’m here. Who knows? Maybe I pissed someone off. I don’t
know.
“All I know is since I was 12, 13 years old, I listened to Dana
White do interviews and explain what he wanted in a fighter, and
I’m that motherf—-er.”
Gaethje hasn’t competed since losing to Nurmagomedov via
second-round submission in the UFC 254 headliner last October.
Prior to that, the former World Series of Fighting Champion had
scored successive KO/TKO triumphs over Tony
Ferguson, Donald
Cerrone, Edson
Barboza and James
Vick.
Gaethje recently revealed that he was
in talks to face Chandler, but that bout was apparently passed
over to book the ex-Bellator title holder against Oliveira. In the
past, Gaethje hasn’t hesitated to be vocal in his criticism of the
direction of the division.
“If I get disrespected, it’s gonna be hurtful because I really
bought into what [Dana] talks about. So it’ll hurt, because I feel
like a company man from day one,” Gaethje said. “I don’t ever want
to go anywhere else, I don’t want to fight anywhere else. But my
principles are the most important thing to me. We’ll see what
happens.”