After a six-year undefeated run, UFC lightweight contender Justin Gaethje is now on a two-fight skid. His most recent loss came at the hands of Dustin Poirier, who defeated him via fourth-round TKO in Glendale, Arizona in April.
The 29-year-old former WSOF lightweight champion is now scheduled to face James Vick, who is currently on a four-fight win streak. And if ends up losing badly, Gaethje may just cut his career short.
“I’m so much better than James Vick. It sucks to say it, but if I was to go out there and get outclassed by James Vick, I’d have to hang them up,” Gaethje said on Ariel Helwani’s MMA show on ESPN (transcript via MMA Mania). “He’s not good, he’s slow,” he added. “I’m talking if I go out and get outclassed. If he outclasses me and beats me in every aspect of this game, then yeah, something is not good.”
“I’m not saying, I don’t know, you know how this game works and we fly high on emotions,” he continued. “Everything you get from us is coming from an emotional aspect. Like I said, if I was to run into a knee and get knocked out, no that’s not what, if he outclasses me then I would be so disappointed in myself.”
Vick himself does not think too highly of Gaethje and his abilities inside the cage, and it is something that the latter has taken personally.
“He talks a lot of s— and I have no respect for him,” Gaethje said of Vick. “He’s never fought a Michael Johnson, Eddie Alvarez or a Dustin Poirier. He can call me whatever he wants, but I fought the best of the best my first three fights in UFC.”
“This is my third of four fights being the main event. When he wants to talk about levels, those are the levels he needs to talk about, and he’s not on my level.”
Gaethje and Vick will headline the UFC’s upcoming event in Lincoln, Nebraska on August 25th.
The interview begins at the 3:31 mark of the video below.