Justin Gaethje: UFC Record, Next Fight, Net Worth & Best Fights

There are fighters you watch for technique, and then there are fighters you watch because you honestly don’t know what’s going to happen next — Justin Gaethje is the second kind. His record sits at 28-5 overall, and in 2020 he added the UFC’s interim lightweight title to that run with a fifth-round stoppage of Tony Ferguson, a result logged on UFC Korea’s official athlete page. By the last section, the record and the rumor mill should be easier to tell apart.

Record: 28-5 overall; 11-5 UFC ·
UFC finishes: 7 of 11 UFC wins inside distance ·
Notable title: UFC interim lightweight champion ·
Next fight: Ilia Topuria ·
Suspension: 6 months after UFC fight

Justin Gaethje at a glance

Seven entries, one pattern: the official UFC page and the independent record keepers describe the same career, even when their update timing is off by one win.

The pattern: the UFC and the trackers disagree on one win, not on the fighter.

What is Justin Gaethje’s ranking in the UFC?

Justin Gaethje is an American professional mixed martial artist and UFC lightweight, and the ranking answer depends on which ranking you mean. The official UFC rankings shift with each event card, and the pages reviewed for this piece don’t lock in a live lightweight number for him at publication time. The UFC’s athlete page lists the stable facts instead: division, record, champion status.

For a longer read on the record and the money questions, our feature on Justin Gaethje’s UFC record, next fight and net worth fills in the rest.

What is Justin Gaethje’s UFC record?

• Overall MMA record: 28-5
• UFC record: 11-5
• UFC wins inside distance: 7

The 28-5 line comes from independent record keepers; the UFC and ESPN pages were showing 27-5 when reviewed, a one-win lag that happens when official pages update at a different pace than databases. Even with the lag, the shape of the career is identical: 11 UFC wins, seven finishes, most of them knockouts or technical knockouts.

The implication: the live ranking number will move next fight; the ledger won’t.

What division does Justin Gaethje fight in?

• Division: Lightweight
• Recent status: Former interim lightweight champion; former BMF titleholder

The UFC lists Gaethje as a lightweight, the division where his entire UFC record was built. The BMF chapter ended at UFC 300 when Max Holloway stopped him with one second left in the fight — a finish that matters for the next-fight math below.

What was Justin Gaethje’s best fight?

Gaethje has never had a boring fight, which makes “best” a category problem. The debate usually comes down to two nights: the one where he became champion and the one where a head kick ended a war.

Justin Gaethje fight history

• UFC 291: head-kick KO of Dustin Poirier at 1:00 of round 2 (Sherdog’s fight record database)
• UFC 254 (2020): lost the undisputed lightweight title fight to Khabib Nurmagomedov
• UFC 300 (April 13, 2024): lost the BMF title to Max Holloway by KO at 4:59 of round 5

The Poirier fight is the cleanest single moment — one perfectly timed head kick that turned a brawl into a knockout and made Gaethje the BMF champion. The Holloway loss is the cruelest: one second from the final horn, and the belt was gone. The fight history shows the trade-off of his style in both directions.

A separate profile makes the case that Gaethje is the UFC’s most decorated non-champion.

Justin Gaethje knockouts

The 2020 interim title fight against Tony Ferguson is the knockout that matters most. Gaethje survived Ferguson’s chaos, then finished him in round 5 to win the belt (UFC Korea’s official athlete page).

The implication: “best fight” changes with what you value. If you want a single moment, it’s the Poirier head kick. If you want a crowning, it’s Ferguson. Gaethje’s record gives you both — which is why the question keeps getting asked.

Is Justin Gaethje fighting tonight?

The literal answer depends on the date you’re reading this, because the next-fight picture currently splits three ways across the record books. The useful answer is which reports are solid and which are still moving.

What is Justin Gaethje’s next fight?

• MMA Index’s fighter log lists Ilia Topuria as the next matchup, at the UFC White House event, with a reported result already logged for round 4
• ESPN’s fighter history log lists a January 24, 2026 bout against Paddy Pimblett as a five-round win (ESPN’s fighter history log)
• UFCalendar’s fight tracker says no next fight was booked at its last update (UFCalendar’s fight tracker)

That’s the state of the record after a fact check: two independent databases already show different next fights, and a third shows none. When sources disagree like this, the only safe answer is the official UFC schedule — a date confirmed by the promotion beats any database guess. The working plan is a UFC White House event, with Topuria the name most often attached to it.

Justin Gaethje suspension

The suspension doesn’t end the career — it resets the calendar. The reports reviewed don’t specify which UFC fight triggered it, which is one more reason the date is fuzzy.

The catch: three databases telling three different stories is a demand for an official date, not a reason to guess.

What is Justin Gaethje’s net worth?

This is where the record books go quiet. None of the official records reviewed for this article lists a verified net worth for Gaethje — not the UFC, not ESPN, not Sherdog. ESPN’s official fighter profile tracks his record; it doesn’t track his bank account.

Who is the richest guy in the UFC?

• No fighter is confirmed as a billionaire in the sources reviewed for this piece.
• The most famous UFC money stories circle Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov, but the sources reviewed here don’t verify either man’s current net worth.

The search cluster around Gaethje’s net worth inevitably pulls in McGregor and Khabib, and that’s where fan estimates outrun the evidence. Neither man publishes audited finances, so every “richest UFC fighter” number in circulation is an estimate, not a fact.

Who is richer, Conor or Khabib?

So who’s richer, Conor or Khabib? The honest answer is that the sources used in this review don’t confirm either figure. Even the personal side of the rivalry — whether Khabib has truly put it behind him — isn’t something the records confirm.

The pattern: money talk in MMA is loudest where the paper trail is thinnest. Until Gaethje or his team puts a number on the record, the only verified figure in this section is the round count.

At what age do fighters peak?

Ask five MMA analysts and you’ll get five different answers, because the sport runs on two clocks: fight age and calendar age. The question assumes there’s one number; the record books say there isn’t.

Who is the youngest UFC champion ever?

• Jon Jones: won the light-heavyweight title at 23 — still the youngest champion in UFC history.

Jones’ 23-year-old title win anchors the “young” side of the debate, and UFC history records it clearly. Gaethje is the counterweight: his interim title run came after 30, per his official fight timeline. Both men are UFC champions. The variable that separates them isn’t age — it’s mileage.

The pattern: MMA has a 23-year-old champion and a 30-something champion in the same history books, so “peak” is a description of mileage, not a birth date.

Five fights that define the record

Five fights, one pattern: every career-defining Gaethje result either ends early or goes the distance — there’s no quiet middle.

The pattern: title nights and KO losses bookend every high, and the Fiziev decision is the only comfortable win on the list.

Timeline: from interim title to the UFC White House reset

• 2020 — Won the UFC interim lightweight title with a fifth-round TKO of Tony Ferguson (UFC official record).
• 2020 — Lost the undisputed lightweight title fight to Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 254 (UFC official record).
• April 13, 2024 — Lost the BMF title to Max Holloway at UFC 300, KO at 4:59 of round 5 (UFC Korea’s official athlete page; Sherdog).
• March 8, 2025 — Beat Rafael Fiziev by unanimous decision at UFC 313 (Sherdog’s fight record database).
• 2025 — Handed a 6-month suspension after a UFC fight (Yahoo Sports).
• Upcoming — Reported next: Ilia Topuria at UFC White House (MMA Index’s fighter database).

The timeline’s shape matters: a championship, a loss that marked the ceiling, a highlight-reel win, a cruel KO loss, a reset. The Topuria fight is the next chapter — provided the official schedule confirms it.

What this means: one championship, two KO defeats, one suspension, and a reported comeback — the next entry decides whether the arc reads as a comeback or a coda.

What’s confirmed, what’s still unclear

The confirmed ledger

• Gaethje is a UFC lightweight and a former UFC interim lightweight champion (UFC’s official athlete profile).
• His record reads 28-5 overall in independent record keepers; UFC and ESPN pages show 27-5 pending an update (Sherdog’s fight record database).
• Seven of his 11 UFC wins are finishes, most by KO/TKO (UFC’s official athlete profile).
• He lost the BMF title to Max Holloway at UFC 300 on April 13, 2024 (UFC Korea’s official athlete page).
• Jon Jones is the youngest UFC champion, winning the light-heavyweight title at 23 (UFC official record).

The open questions

• His exact official UFC lightweight ranking at publication time.
• His verified net worth — no official source in this review lists one.
• Whether any UFC fighter is a confirmed billionaire.
• The confirmed date and opponent of his next UFC fight.
• The private status of the Khabib-Conor relationship.
• His age, height and family details — none are verified in the sources reviewed here.

The takeaway: the confirmed list is short and stubborn; the open list is longer. That’s the sign of an honest fact check, and it’s the right lens for every “next fight” headline you see.

What the record books say

No one in this section is performing for a camera. These are the lines the official records and trackers are willing to print — and one of them is exactly why you double-check before buying a ticket.

Justin Gaethje def. Dustin Poirier — KO (head kick) — 1:00 of round 2 — UFC 291.

Sherdog (fighter-record database)

Weight class: Lightweight. Status: former interim UFC lightweight champion.

UFC Korea official athlete page

No next fight was booked at the time of this update.

UFCalendar (fight tracker)

The pattern: records that agree on the past and disagree on the future are exactly when you check the official schedule.

Editor’s note

Gaethje’s story right now is a fork in the lightweight road. The confirmed record says he’s a finisher who came a second short of keeping the BMF title; the open record says his next opponent, his net worth, and even his next fight date are still being written. For fight fans deciding whether to clear the calendar for the UFC White House event, the choice is clear: wait for the official UFC event announcement, or accept that any fight date you see is a rumor — because the difference between 27-5 and 28-5 is one update, and the difference between a comeback and a coda is one fight.

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