{"id":351528,"date":"2026-06-16T02:17:42","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T20:47:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=351528"},"modified":"2026-06-16T02:17:42","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T20:47:42","slug":"justin-gaethje-disputes-claims-ilia-topuria-quit-despite-pinpointing-moment-his-spirit-was-taken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/06\/16\/justin-gaethje-disputes-claims-ilia-topuria-quit-despite-pinpointing-moment-his-spirit-was-taken\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Gaethje disputes claims Ilia Topuria quit despite pinpointing moment his ‘spirit’ was taken"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Follow us on Google Discover<\/span> <\/a> <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Justin Gaethje says he didn\u2019t see Ilia Topuria quit during their 4 round war.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gaethje earned one other two post-fight bonuses after producing the sort of fight that fans have come to expect from him contained in the Octagon.<\/p>\n

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Despite displaying incredible toughness through the bout, the likes of Paddy Pimblett have accused Topuria of quitting after he didn\u2019t make it to the ultimate round.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Highlight\u2019 has a track record for pushing opponents to their limits and while he did just that on Sunday night, he didn\u2019t see \u2018El Matador\u2019 truly break.<\/p>\n

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Should Justin Gaethje retire following his undisputed title win?\ud83e\udd14<\/h3>\n

On his third attempt, Justin Gaethje finally became the undisputed lightweight champion, pulling off one in every of the most important upsets in combat sports history\ud83d\udc4f\ud83c\udffc<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Photo by Chris Unger\/Zuffa LLC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n

Ilia Topuria was transported to the hospital after taking significant damage in the primary lack of his skilled profession.<\/p>\n

Despite being down on the scorecards when the fight was stopped, \u2018El Matador\u2019 still had some very strong moments against Justin Gaethje.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Highlight\u2019 praised his opponent when reflecting on the fight, revealing that the body shots he took within the second round were still impacting him on the post-fight press conference<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt still hurts without delay,\u201d he said. \u201cThat hurts, my hand hurts, my jaw hurts. He’s a formidable opponent. He\u2019s so good and so dangerous. I didn\u2019t see him quit. I saw them almost stop the fight at the top of the third round and I used to be like, \u2018No way\u2019. He\u2019s back on the market and back to being dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite dismissing the narrative that Topuria quit, Gaethje does think that him with the ability to survive a barrage within the second round played a giant part within the fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he didn\u2019t get the finish at the top of the second round, I believe it really took his spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

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After losing his belt and undefeated record, what\u2019s next for Ilia Topuria?<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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What’s next for Ilia Topuria? Credit: Jeff Bottari\/Zuffa LLC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n

The fight was incredibly competitive within the early rounds, with Topuria bouncing back in a giant way within the second to reply a robust start from Gaethje.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the third round completely modified the course of the title unification clash, with Topuria getting dropped and searching in desperate need of a second wind.<\/p>\n

He was in a position to recuperate and produce a significantly better display within the fourth round, however the damage had already been done at this point.<\/p>\n

An update on Topuria\u2019s health hasn\u2019t been issued on the time of writing.<\/p>\n

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Follow us on Google Discover Justin Gaethje says he didn\u2019t see Ilia Topuria quit during their 4 round war. Gaethje earned one other two post-fight bonuses after producing the sort of fight that fans have come to expect from him contained in the Octagon. Despite displaying incredible toughness through the bout, the likes of Paddy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":351529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[338],"tags":[1464,31780,10916,9713,4974,7291,35929,3566,675,8737],"class_list":["post-351528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-claims","tag-disputes","tag-gaethje","tag-ilia","tag-justin","tag-moment","tag-pinpointing","tag-quit","tag-spirit","tag-topuria"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351528"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":351531,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351528\/revisions\/351531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}