Justin Gaethje is still recovering from injuries sustained in his brutal battle with Ilia Topuria at the White House in June.
Gaethje survived some gnarly body shots and massive knockout blows to force Topuria’s corner to throw in the towel following the fourth round. Topuria was stuck wearing sunglasses for weeks after that battle. Gaethje looked unscathed, but did admit following the bout that both his hands hurt from all the damage he dealt.
Those hands are still in a state, Gaethje explained to Sports Illustrated in a recent interview.
“I got to go home and recover a little bit,” Gaethje said. “I still can’t punch anything. Both of my hands are still hurt from the fight.”
Gaethje still hasn’t officially made a decision on whether he’ll fight again, but the general expectation is he’ll return in 2027 if the UFC can cook up some kind of big money super fight for him.
“I guess if I’m not fighting until next year,” Gaethje said. “[Topuria’s] probably not going to fight until next year, too, seeing as he’s probably recovering. I’m just gonna enjoy being the champion for the rest of the year, because I fought two times already in the first six months.”
“You know, put everything on paper, pros and cons, talk to all my family and everybody that loves me and that I trust to be honest with me, and then I’ll make the decision.”
Before winning the belt, Gaethje shared a gameplan that involved beating Ilia Topuria and then defending the belt against Arman Tsarukyan. After that one-two it would be hard to dismiss his title reign as a fluke. After that? Retire on top.
Of course, Arman Tsarukyan has a different ending to this story in mind. All Arman has to do to land that title fight is get past Mauricio Ruffy at UFC 331 on September 19th.