Justin Gaethje put on a show in front of zero fans Saturday night at UFC 249 in Jacksonville, Fla., winning the interim lightweight belt with a fifth-round TKO victory over the legendary Tony Ferguson after referee Herb Dean called the fight with just over a minute to go.
But when it was time to get the belt from UFC boss Dana White, Gaethje wanted nothing to do with the impressive hardware as he quickly tossed it aside before talking to Joe Rogan in the Octagon.
Why would he do that? Because interim belts in the UFC are pretty silly and Gaethje doesn’t want to waste his time celebrating an accomplishment that now sets him up to fight for the real lightweight belt against Khabib Nurmagomedov who still owns the belt and is one of the greatest fighters of all time.
Look at how Gaethje treated his belt:
Seriously, he wanted nothing to do with that thing. He evenly let his coach leave Octagon with it:
Now that is one of the coolest things I’ve seen in the fight game for quite some time. Sure, we haven’t seen fighting in quite some time, either, but it’s still pretty bad ass.
Gaethje’s win sets up his fight with Nurmagomedov and I’m all in on that one, especially with how Gaethje looked in controlling the entire fight against Ferguson, a man who entered the fight with 12 straight wins dating back to 2013.
This also means we still won’t get a Ferguson-Khabib fight, which stinks, but what if Gaethje fights Khabib and Ferguson fights Conor McGregor in what would essentially be a mini lightweight tournament? Who’s not watching those fights?
Gaethje tossing the interim belt aside, though, was so good and what this sport needs.
The UFC world loved it:
