Five months ago at Madison Square Garden, Justin Gaethje kicked off the UFC 268 pay-per-view main card with a Fight of the Year-level victory against Michael Chandler. The scrap electrified the crowd and set the tone for an excellent return to New York after a two-year UFC hiatus.
As much as teammate Rose Namajunas wanted to focus on that November night’s defense of her strawweight title, she told The Post via Zoom she “had to watch his fight, start to finish” as Gaethje, whom she looks at “like an older brother to me,” put on a show in the fight he believed would earn him another championship opportunity.
It worked, and the shoe will be on the other foot for UFC 274 on Saturday in Phoenix, when Gaethje (23-3, 20 finishes) challenges lightweight champion Charles Oliveira in the pay-per-view headliner. Namajunas also puts her title on the line again in a rematch against Carla Esparza, in the bout immediately preceding Gaethje’s.
“I love going first because I want to inspire my teammates to perform,” Gaethje recently told The Post via Zoom. “I embrace that role, but now I’m going to embrace closing the show.”
Gaethje already has plenty of experience as a closer. Before the Chandler fight, the man appropriately known as “The Highlight” had headlined all but one of his other eight UFC bouts, including the past two pay-per-view events.
What Gaethje has yet to secure is the undisputed lightweight title. His first bid in October 2020 went the other way, with Khabib Nurmagomedov successfully defending his championship via second-round submission before announcing, inside the cage, his retirement from MMA competition.
Gaethje had won the interim title that set up the unification with Nurmagomedov, but to him “second place” is no replacement for being the true No. 1. Often thinking of how he can be a positive for others in his life even before himself, reaching the top of the mountain would be no different.
“That would mean a lot to me; it would mean even more to my family and the people that look up to me,” Gaethje said, “the people that have had my back and been saying that I’m going to be the best in the world at one point, through my entire career. It’s gonna be great for those people.”
After Nurmagomedov abdicated the 155-pound throne, Oliveira (32-8, 29 finishes) stopped Chandler to win the vacant title. That matchup hadn’t sat well with Gaethje, who along with Dustin Poirier was considered a top-two lightweight — they were the most recent challengers to Nurmagomedov. Before the Chandler fight at the Garden, Gaethje told The Post “[Oliveira] didn’t fight the No. 1 guy in the world” to secure the belt, referring to himself or Poirier.
A month later, Oliveira tapped out Poirier via rear-naked choke in the first successful defense of his title, the UFC-record 15th submission victory of his career. The win went a long way toward cementing for many the Brazilian’s status as the clear No. 1 in the division, rather than just being the man with the gold on his waist.
Count Gaethje among them, who respects Oliveira’s abilities and has seen championship traits on display since winning the title last May.
“The biggest difference is his maturity and his confidence,” Gaethje said. “Those factors right there are dangerous, and he has embraced both of those things. And that presents more danger to me.”
But Gaethje also sees a champion who has lost sight of the arduous path Oliveira walked for more than 10 years to reach the top. The 32-year-old Brazilian, who had debuted at age 20 and went 10-8 over the first seven years of his career, carries a 10-fight win streak into this bout.
“He thinks he’s infallible right now, for some odd reason,” Gaethje says. “He’s [forgotten] his journey and how many ups and downs he had. I can’t wait to bring him back down a little bit.”