Justin Gaethje’s UFC 291 rematch against Dustin Poirier ended in the least expected manner. ‘The Highlight’ is not particularly known for his head-kicking prowess. However, he pulled a rabbit out of the hat and scored the first head kick knockout of his 29-fight MMA career. But what made the win more dramatic was the fact that Gaethje’s teammate Kamaru Usman lost his welterweight title against Leon Edwards with the same technique, in the same arena at UFC 278!
Gaethje spoke about the eerily similar finishes during his interview with Brett Okamoto of ESPN MMA. Gaethje stated that his team does not talk about Usman’s knockout loss. However, when the MMA community started to draw parallels between both finishes, Usman sent a lighthearted text message to ‘Highlight’ to address the same. He said:
But the 34-year-old fighter believes that the similarity between both finishes that took place in Salt Lake City is nothing more than a coincidence.
Watch Justin Gaethje make the statement from the 21:15 mark of the video below:
Justin Gaethje has significantly raised his stock with back-to-back impressive wins over Rafael Fiziev and Dustin Poirier. While the former interim UFC lightweight champion is gunning for the third crack at the UFC title, megastar Conor McGregor called him out for a fight after UFC 291 concluded. Gaethje refused the fight initially but seems to be pondering over the decision from his recent comments.
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While speaking to MMA journalist John Morgan for MMA Underground, Gaethje’s manager Ali Abdelaziz opined that fighting Justin Gaethje is probably not in the best interest of Conor McGregor. He said:
Justin Gaethje has one last title run left in him and has several options going forward. It will be interesting to see what he chooses next.
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