Justin Gaethje has spoken publically this week, for the first time since his ‘BMF’ title fight loss to Max Holloway on April 13th.
Although he was likely the next in line for a lightweight title fight, Justin Gaethje accepted a fight to defend his ‘BMF’ title against Max Holloway, instead of waiting for Islam Makhachev.
‘The Highlight’ suffered only his third career loss by knockout, after ‘Blessed’ Holloway scored one of the greatest knockouts of all time.
Despite suffering the brutal loss, Gaethje has stated that he has ‘no regrets’ and will not change his fight style just because he came up short against the Hawaiian.
Justin Gaethje reflects on the final moments of the fight
One of the reasons it became such a viral knockout, was because Max Holloway pointed to the center of the Octagon with 10 seconds remaining – despite being four rounds up – and gave Gaethje one last chance to score himself a flash KO.
“When that happens, the first thing in my mind is of course (I’ll stand in the center)” Gaethje admitted on LeBatardShow. “I just think there was no other option, someone points to the ground like that, there’s no way I’m not going to accept that challenge.” Gaethje added.
What felt like a defining moment at the time, was at the end of round one when Holloway broke the nose of the 35-year-old. Gaethje has admitted that he doesn’t think that played as much a factor as people are claiming and said he felt physically great going into round five.
“I don’t think it did (affect my cardio), I felt really good in there and felt amazing in there, we worked so hard through this whole camp to be ready for a cardio war.” Gaethje said.
Justin Gaethje admits the ‘biggest mistake’ he made in the lead-up to the fight
After having time to reflect on his 12-week camp as a whole and what may have played a part in the loss, ‘The Highlight’ has pinpointed what was his ‘biggest mistake’ going into the fight.
“I think if I made a mistake, the biggest mistake was not realizing or understanding through camp how much danger I was in. Obviously, I know why now, I think it was more difficult for my body to go to a primal state because of my lack of awareness of the danger that my body was in.” Gaethje revealed.
The former interim lightweight champion went on to explain that because Max Holloway has always been a featherweight, he never highlighted him as a potential opponent, and because of that, couldn’t find the ‘fire’.
“There’s never been another fight in my career where I’ve been like I didn’t expect to fight that guy. It’s not that I didn’t want to hurt him because I was willing to hurt him but the lead-up was very different.
“Even Donald Cerrone was my friend back in the day, but he knocked me out in practice in 2010 so I wanted to get that back (when we fought. That fire wasn’t there (for the Holloway fight) and I think that was the biggest mistake I made going into this fight and it’s something I’ll learn from.”
‘The Highlight’ gave a provisional timeline for his return, stating that he likely won’t return to contact training for at least six months, but will continue to stay in shape.
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