‘The Highlight’ returns at UFC 313 as he looks to earn a big bounce back win in the lightweight division.
Justin Gaethje will face Rafael Fiziev in a late notice co-main event this Saturday at the UFC’s return to the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The former interim lightweight champion was previously scheduled to face Dan Hooker until ‘The Hangman’ withdrew due to a hand injury.
In the build-up to the fight, Gaethje has revealed a key lesson he learned from his loss to Max Holloway at UFC 300.
He now plans on implementing parts of his old style with his more refined technical abilities in order to make himself more dangerous than ever before.
Justin Gaethje builds his perfect fighter and picks himself for kicks
An even more aggressive Justin Gaethje is a scary prospect indeed but the former BMF titleholder wouldn’t pick all of his own attributes when building the perfect fighter.
That’s exactly what he was asked to do in a recent interview with TNT Sports where he was tasked with selecting power, cardio, kicks, fight IQ, wrestling, chin and speed to create an unstoppable force.
Gaethje did choose himself for the kicks category and for good reason with the bonus-winning machine being one of the most devastating leg kickers that we have ever seen inside the Octagon.
Not to mention his emphatic head kick knockout over Dustin Poirier at UFC 291 to win the BMF title in their rematch.
In the other striking category, Gaethje picked the UFC’s light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira who headlines the card on March 8 in a title defense against Magomed Ankalaev.
Bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili received two spots for both cardio and fight IQ whilst his former opponent, Max Holloway was his pick for chin.
The final two spots went to lightweight champion Islam Makhachev for wrestling and strawweight champion Zhang Weili for speed.
Justin Gaethje tried to fight more reserved in his first fight with Rafael Fiziev
In their first encounter at UFC 286 in London, Justin Gaethje and Rafael Fiziev unsurprisingly stole the show with a fight of the night bout.
‘The Highlight’ admitted in his post-fight interview that he intended on not getting caught up in a brawl like in some of his previous fights but a change of game plan erased this.
After struggling in the first round as he tried to fight Fiziev from the outside, Gaethje started to achieve more success when he put his opponent on the backfoot.
Though his overall game has come a long way during his UFC career, his aggressive style and damage output is still what separates Gaethje from others.