#gaethje

8 wins by knockouts

10 wins by decisions

11 wins by Submission

Lightweight Champion and Pound for Pound

Khabib Nurmagomedov has officialy retired, thank you for all those years champ!

Joey

September 8th

So on main event and co-main event alone, this card is an easy win. The main event pits two of the UFC's best action fighters in a battle for LW action fighter dominance with subtle title fight implications. At the very least, the winner of this fight could find themselves comfortably resting inside the holiest of holy grounds aka "The elite top 5 lightweight" territory that's currently occupied by Khabib, Tony Ferguson, Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier. The co-main event pits an aging LHW grappler in the midst of a career renaissance vs one of 205 lbs wackiest fighters around. I shouldn't have to try too hard to sell you a main event/co-main tandem of Gaethje/Cerrone and Glover Teix/Krylov. Beyond that? There's still some pretty good stuff although the action fight quotient begins to sway here. We've got some good well put together fights at 185 lbs with Uriah Hall taking on Antonio Carlos Junior and Andrew Sanchez vs Marvin Vettori in a fight that could be shittastic or pretty fun. The HWs are back with some interesting filler action although Marcin Tybura vs Agusto Sakai could be violent in doses. There's your standard glut of Canadian fighters nobody cares about on an international level yet as well. The main card is interesting and pseudo deep while the prelims are littered with unknowns at 135 lbs and 145 lbs. It's a solid late Summer/early Autumn card worth your time with two big fights at the top of the bill to suck you in.

Fights: 12

Debuts: Miles Johns, Hunter Azure

Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations: 2 (David Branch OUT, Marvin Vettori IN vs Andrew Sanchez/Sergey Khandozhko vs Michel Pereira CANCELLED)

Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC): 9 (Glover Teixeira, Nikita Krylov, Uriah Hall, Justin Gaethje, Donald Cerrone, Misha Cirkunov, Todd Duffee, Marcin Tybura, Louis Smolka)

Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC: 1 (Chas Skelly)

Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC: 4 (Augusto Sakai, Justin Gaethje, Glover Teixeira, Jimmy Crute)

Main Card Record Since Jan 1st 2017 (in the UFC):  25-18

Justin Gaethje- 3-2 Donald Cerrone- 4-5 Glover Teixeira- 4-2 Nikita Krylov- 1-1 Antonio Carlos Junior- 3-1 Uriah Hall- 2-1 Misha Cirkunov- 1-3 Jimmy Crute- 2-0 Marcin Tybura- 3-3 Augusto Sakai- 2-0

Fights By Weight Class (yearly number here):

Bantamweight- 3 (48) Middleweight-  2 (32) Heavyweight- 2 (27) Light Heavyweight- 2 (34) Featherweight-  2 (44) Lightweight- 1 (59)

Welterweight-  (51) Women’s Bantamweight-  (15) Women’s Flyweight- (29) Women’s Strawweight- (22) Flyweight-   (12) Women’s Featherweight- (7)

2019 Number Tracker

Debuting Fighters (25-49-1)- Miles Johns, Hunter Azure

Short Notice Fighters (24-32)- Marvin Vettori

Second Fight (49-24)- Jeff Hughes, Jordan Griffin, Ryan MacDonald, Cole Smith, Austin Hubbard, Kyle Propeleck

Cage Corrosion (Fighters who have not fought within a year of the date of the fight) (19-32-1)-   Todd Duffee

Undefeated Fighters (30-33-1)- Cole Smith, Jimmy Crute, Hunter Azure, Miles Johns

Fighters with at least four fights in the UFC with 0 wins over competition still in the organization (11-8)- Todd Duffee

Weight Class Jumpers (Fighters competing outside of the weight class of their last fight even if they’re returning BACK to their “normal weight class”) (25-17)- Kyle Prepolec

Twelve Precarious Ponderings

1-  So Donald Cerrone and Justin Gaethje attempting to make history and become the first UFC fighter to have four Fight Of The Night awards in a row. Thus far a casual perusal of about 50 of the usual suspects (Diego Sanchez, Jim Miller, Joe Lauzon, Nate Diaz, Edson Barboza, Dan Hooker, Kelvin Gastelum etc) have revealed that most of them top out at around 3 in a row. Just a fun factoid.

2- Is Cerrone  about to FINALLY become overworked? In November, he subbed Mike Perry in the first round of a pretty wild fight. In January, he beat Alexander Hernandez in a pretty tough fight where he got out of there early but not without damage. He fought Al Iaquinta in May in a five round fight where he took some damage but won at a relatively solid safe pace. He spun around real quick in June vs Tony Ferguson and got his face broken up for two rounds en route to a doctor stoppage loss. NOW Cerrone is back in August with a seemingly healed up eye to fight Justin Gaethje on short notice. Is this all a bit too much and a bit too soon for Cerrone or is the fact that it's short-ish notice and another fight in a busy schedule a benefit to him?

3- I think it's fair to say that Edson Barboza was the best kicker but is Donald Cerrone the best head kicker that Gaethje has ever faced?

4- What does the winner of this fight do? With Ferguson vs Khabib almost locked up and the McGregor spectre looming, is this just high level elite busy work for both guys?