Justin Gaethje Admits He Didn’t Realize How Badly Ilia Topuria Was Damaged During Fight
Justin Gaethje just revealed that he had no idea how badly Ilia Topuria's face was damaged while he was fighting him in the octagon.
When Justin Gaethje steps inside the Octagon, extreme violence is practically guaranteed. But even by his grueling standards, his lightweight title clash against Ilia Topuria reached a level of carnage that left fans stunned. What makes the fourth-round stoppage even wilder is that Gaethje was completely oblivious to the sheer destruction he was inflicting in real time.
The 37-year-old veteran, who holds a 28-5 professional record featuring 20 knockout victories, recently opened up about the foggy reality of locked-in combat. While viewers around the world gasped at the noticeable damage done to Topuria’s facial structure, Gaethje was simply operating on raw instinct.
“I never saw his face,” Gaethje admitted. “I saw when I hit him with the uppercut, he reached for his eye, and I saw blood. I was like, 'Sweet.' That was in the first round, and that was it. That's all I remember, really.”
Total Blindness to the Carnage
As the heavy leather continued to fly, the sheer intensity of the fight blurred Gaethje's perception of time and impact. He kept marching forward, unaware that the referee and corner were closing in to call off the contest after the fourth frame.
“Outside of that, I sat down in the corner after the fourth round, and I was like, 'Was that the third or fourth round?'” Gaethje recalled. “And then my coach in the corner was like, 'It's over, it's over.' And I was like, 'What?' So I didn't even know that he was compromised like that. I had no idea.”
The stoppage handed Topuria the first loss of his professional career (17-1), triggering widespread social media chatter and even brief glove-tampering accusations from the former champion. Gaethje casually shrugged off the controversy, pointing out that re-shaping opponents' faces is standard procedure when trading shots with him. For "The Highlight," another iconic victory was added to his resume, even if he barely remembered the details.
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