Former UFC interim champion Justin Gaethje suffered a horror bike crash which saw him lose his vision for a few seconds just days out from his last world title effort.
The Arizona native has fought twice for the UFC lightweight title, but has lost both efforts against Khabib Nurmagomedov in 2020 and Charles Oliveira this year. And 18 days out from UFC 274 in his home state back in May, he was cycling to the shop when he suffered a crash in which he "smoked his head off road".
Gaethje insists he kept the story from the public due to his insistence it didn't affect his performance on the night against Oliveira, who was unable to win the belt due to missing weight by half-a-pound. In fact, he believes that fighting in his hometown caused him more issues than the bike incident.
Speaking at a media day ahead of UFC 281 in New York this week, Gaethje told reporters: “My dumb a**, 18 days before I fought Charles, I was riding my bicycle to the gas station to get some nicotine pouches and I had like a vicious crash on my bike. Smoked my head off the road, road rash all down my back.
"And then go in there and take that damage I took in that fight? That’s why I’m taking so much time off. It’s just crazy what we go through. Each and every one of us has different circumstances that we go through. That was such a hurdle. As soon as it happened, I had to go home and act like it didn’t happen."
Gaethje never considered pulling out of the fight - a mindset which he himself has questioned in hindsight - having already invested a considerable amount of money into his camp. He claims that during his combat career which has seen him compete in a number of brutal fights that he has stopped himself from feeling emotion around his decisions.
"I had to act like my vision didn’t go 100 percent f***ed up for two seconds. That’s what we’ve been doing since we were kids, you put that doubt aside. As soon as it happened, it’s like, ‘OK, what do I do next? How do I continue to improve and continue to be ready for this fight?' I wasn’t doing anything stupid; my pedal snapped off when I was riding - crazy, crazy, crazy.
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"Stupid is what it was. I was 12 weeks into a camp. I was thousands in and all I know is to compete. I don’t let myself feel anything. I try to take away all of the emotions. So, I’m constantly either running from it or feel like I can control it. But in that instance, it was just like, ‘I f***ed up, this is not good.’ I didn’t feel compromised, like, externally, not even internally. At that moment, I was ready for war.”
"I don’t even want to talk about it, because I don’t f***ing know, and I don’t want it to sound anything like [an excuse]. That was just something that happened and I’m a dumba**. That is what it is - I feel like I’ve always been 100 per cent, because I don’t allow those things to deter my actions.
"At the end of the day, when I step in there, there’s only five things that are going to affect the outcome, and all of it has to do with my choices, actions, effort, and those things don’t matter anymore. To make it to the fight, you’ve just got to be careful, and it sounds dumb because we’re getting ready to do something really dangerous.”
