Former World Series Of Fighting Lightweight Champion Justin Gaethje is making his UFC debut against Michael Johnson in the main event of the UFC Ultimate Fighter 25 Finale.
The former champion knows that at some point in time, someone in the UFC is going to knock him out.
“I’m not promising anything. I’m not promising success. I’m not promising that. I’ll promise you that I will get knocked out here in the next, like, 10 fights, because it’s a game of freakin’ centimeters and fractions of seconds. Come on, I’ve watched every single one of my fights in slow motion, and I live. I beat you to the time. I beat you to the punch. I’m in your face, and you can’t breathe. Not for a second will you be able to breathe,” Gaethje said on The MMA Hour.
Prior to signing with the UFC earlier this year, the former title holder was the first and only lightweight champion in the WSOF’s history.
One advantage Gaethje believes he has when compared to other fighters is that when he enters the Octagon, there’s nothing for him to lose.
“You can say the competition isn’t stiff, but go look at the combined record of my opponents,” Gaethje said. “It’s somewhere like 180-50. So I fight people who can fight. I’ve fought warriors. I’ve fought people who should’ve went down when I hit them, and they didn’t. But I’m from a small town, a copper mining family. We work hard, and I’ve got nothing to lose here.”
UFC Ultimate Fighter 25 Finale takes place on Friday, July 7 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada with Justin Gaethje and Michael Johnson headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, which airs live on Fox Sports 1.
