Gaethje insists Topuria quit and does not deserve a rematch after UFC White House upset

Justin Gaethje has emphatically shut down any talk of an immediate rematch with Ilia Topuria, insisting the Georgian quit on his stool after their UFC White House main event — a fight Gaethje won by corner-stoppage TKO to claim the undisputed lightweight championship of the world.

Speaking on the Joe Rogan Experience, Gaethje was blunt about where Topuria stands in the lightweight pecking order. “He quit on the stool, I stopped him twice — what else do I have to f*cking do?” Gaethje said. “[Ilia] doesn’t get a rematch. He can try but he doesn’t get one. His next challenge can’t be me. He needs to fight Paddy or someone like that.”

Gaethje’s claim of stopping Topuria twice refers to the sequence late in the fight. After the third round, a ringside doctor examined Topuria and the bout appeared to be on the verge of being halted before being allowed to continue. When the fourth round ended, Topuria’s corner waved it off, with Gaethje alleging Topuria had already signalled he could not see and was banking on his team ending the night.

“He had already stated it — he didn’t need to say it again,” Gaethje said. “I don’t think he thought they were going to send him back out there.”

The road to that stoppage was far from straightforward. Topuria nearly finished Gaethje in the second round with heavy body shots, dropping him and hunting a submission before the horn rescued the challenger. But as the fight wore on, Topuria’s output visibly faded, and Gaethje seized control through the championship rounds.

Gaethje also raised doubts about whether Topuria can fully recover from his first professional loss, drawing a parallel to his 2020 stoppage of Tony Ferguson. “Before this, he was the guy you couldn’t get through, that you couldn’t push through, that you couldn’t survive with,” Gaethje said. “Once I showed people that all you gotta do is get through that, then nobody is ever going to go in there thinking he’s unbeatable now. And that was his identity.”

As for his own future, Gaethje left the door open on whether he will continue fighting at all, though he acknowledged no immediate retirement plans. Arman Tsarukyan was floated as a potential next opponent, but Gaethje stopped short of committing to any name.