JUSTIN GAETHJE is adamant his showdown with Michael Chandler will provide fireworks – insisting one of them will be knocked out.
The pair’s lightweight barnburner will take place on November 6 on a stacked UFC 268 card at Madison Square Garden.
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MMA fans are salivating at the mouth-watering match-up, which will see two pressure-based fighters collide in The World’s Most Famous Arena.
And former interim 155lb champ Gaethje believes the pair’s respective styles will result in a devastating knockout – provided Chandler doesn’t look to utilise his wrestling.
He told The Schmo: “He loves fighting just as much as me. Styles make matchups and this is a stylistic matchup for the fans.
“Someone’s gonna get knocked out. Unless he turns into a b***h and tries to turn this into a wrestling match the whole time.
“He’s talking about timid souls taking a step backwards. He’s gonna be a timid soul when he starts shooting for legs because he doesn’t like the power. That’s what I think.”
Gaethje’s clash with the three-time Bellator lightweight champion will be his first outing since losing his UFC 254 unification bout with the retired Khabib Nurmagomedov.
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The division moved swiftly on, with Charles Oliveira claiming the belt with a second-round TKO victory over Chandler at UFC 262 in May.
Gaethje, 32, believes he should’ve fought for the vacant belt, saying: “I was the most recent interim titleholder. I see both ways to it.
“From the outside, being me, I was not happy. If I’m on the inside, if I’m running a $4 billion company, $5-6 billion company, then I’d probably want to try to have people forget about that guy.
“So yeah, they did what they wanted to do, had to do in their eyes.
“I was upset, but it doesn’t matter. Gotta go on, gotta keep working.
“I lost. I don’t think you should get a title shot off a loss, but I think the circumstances were special.
Someone’s gonna get knocked out
Justin Gaethje on his UFC 268 clash with Michael Chandler
“Similar to the circumstances that got Cory Sandhagen a title fight.
“He just came off a loss and he jumped in there for a title fight, and the guy didn’t retire.
“There’s been other ones, other examples of people getting shots off of losses.
“So yeah, I thought that was a b*st way of saying I shouldn’t get it, just because I lost.
“Circumstances were different and that’s what it was.”
An emphatic win over Chandler will put Gaethje in pole position to face the winner of Oliveira’s maiden title defence against Dustin Poirier on December 11.
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The Highlight said: “I go out there and get the dub on November 6 and I will be fighting the winner of Poirier and Oliveira.
“That’s definitely the plan. No 1 fought No 5, No 3 fought No 4, and if you were No 2 you got f****d, and it just so happened that my name was next to that No 2 spot.
“So it is what it is. The opportunity is ahead of me to get what I want but I’ve got to capitalise.
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