Justin Gaethje is not one to forgive and forget. Apparently his vendetta against Rafael Fiziev was caused by an incident dating back to October of 2022.
Back in October, McGregor was all over the news when he shared an inappropriate video of himself engaging in some NSFW fun on the yacht. It was an odd choice from McGregor.
Fiziev, who had tried to get Gaethje to agree to a bout previously, decided it would be the perfect time to get a rise out of Gaethje and spur potentially war.
The tweet did not sit well with Gaethje, who exacted revenge in the best possible way – by dominating Fiziev in the Octagon. In the UFC 286 press conference, Gaethje admitted that he wanted to “f*ck” Fiziev up for the disrespectful tweet.
UFC lightweight Justin Gaethje put up a stellar performance against Rafael Fiziev in their recent clash at UFC 286. Gaethje secured an impressive victory over his opponent. However, the nature of the bout left Fiziev’s face battered, prompting concerned reactions from fans.
Fiziev was unperturbed by the results after detailing that sacrificing his face was worth it.
Fiziev’s face went viral thanks to the damage he had taken. Gaethje received praise from MMA fans for rendering an impressive collage of battered faces.
But UFC fans pointed out this is more of a trend than an outlier.
Michael Chandler’s face resembled that of an alien after a war with Gaethje. For those who are spacing out, Chandler even had his son not recognize him thanks to the amount of swelling there was in his face.
And this wasnt’ the worst of it either. Gaethje is widely credited for derailing the career of Tony Ferguson after a head-on collision type war.
Ferguson dropped a decision to Gaethje and was never the same again. Since then, he’s fallen quite a bit from grace and is even unranked right now with Kevin Lee confirming he’s set to rematch Ferguson in his welterweight debut later this year.