Justin Gaethje
UFC 11-5Pro 28-5Champion · Lightweight#3 Men's Pound-for-Poundtale of the tape = factsmetrics = our read
Built from Justin Gaethje’s own numbers — record, form, fighting style and standout rate. Not reported prose. Power striker
5' 11" orthodox power striker campaigning at Lightweight. 11 UFC wins — 7 KO/TKO, 4 decision. Top 6% of Lightweights: lands 6.29 significant strikes a minute and connects with 57% of his significant strikes.
The facts, plainly — vitals and record from public UFC statistics; nickname, nationality and camp from the public fighter register. A field we can't source stays “pending”; it never shows a fake value. Where a fighter was born and where they fight out of come from their Wikipedia entry; where we hold neither, the hometown shown is Sherdog’s. The social accounts are the ones linked from the fighter’s own official athlete page — we don’t match handles by name. The UFC record is counted from the official results themselves, and is dated by the first and last bout it counts.
| Nickname | The Highlight |
| Nationality | United States |
| Born in | Safford, Arizona, United States Wikipedia |
| Fights out of | Denver, Colorado, United States Wikipedia |
| Camp | Genesis Training Center |
| Height | 5' 11" |
| Reach | 70" |
| Stance | Orthodox |
| Age | 37 |
| Date of birth | Nov 14, 1988 |
| Weight | 155 lbs. |
| Pro record | 28-5 |
| UFC record | UFC 11-5 first fight 2017-07-07 · last fight 2026-06-14 |
| Finish split | 11 UFC wins — 7 KO/TKO, 4 decision |
| Social |
Every week Justin Gaethje has stood in the official UFC rankings, one row per table, 2 of them, each band running from the table that set it to the table that changed it.
Official UFC.com official rankings, 2013–present · rankings of 6 October 2026
A published rank holds until the next table changes it, so a band runs from the table that set it to the table that ended it — that is how a ranking works, and it is why an unbroken reign is drawn unbroken. Nothing is interpolated: the band is the last published STATUS, never a rank in between, and the hatched stretches are weeks the archive holds no table for at all. The champion band sits above #1 because a belt is not a rank. The three pound-for-pound tables — the combined one to January 2020, then the Men's and Women's ones — share a row, because they are one standing under three names.
Career averages over Justin Gaethje’s UFC bouts, straight from public UFC statistics — the same eight numbers on his official record. These are the source’s figures, not our read: what we make of them is the card below.
Six 0–100 scores, each a percentile rank against the Lightweight field — not against the whole roster. Tap any i for what a score measures.
Every fight of Justin Gaethje’s that we called in the live 2026 season — whichever corner we called it for. Posted before the fight, graded after it.
FightIQ has called 2 of Justin Gaethje’s fights in 2026: 0 correct (0–2 — 0% right). Each call was posted before the fight and graded after it. The confidence % is the number we stood behind at the time — losses shown, toss-ups included.
| Date | Opponent | We called it for | Confidence | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-15 | Ilia Topuria | Ilia Topuria (against Gaethje) | 77.4% | Missed |
| 2026-01-24 | Paddy Pimblett | Paddy Pimblett (against Gaethje) | 68.5% | Missed |
Across our full back-tested history we called 4 of Justin Gaethje’s fights, 2 correct. Back-tested, not part of the public timestamped record: these were computed after the fact, so they show the model working on old cards — they were never published ahead of those fights.
Where the strikes go — and where they land on him. Career UFC totals, straight off the tape.
Significant strikes only, as recorded by UFCStats, across the fighter's whole UFC career. Shares are raw counts — nothing here is modelled or smoothed. Accuracy is landed ÷ attempted and comes from the per-round tape, which covers slightly fewer fights than the totals do. “Field” is the average fighter in that weight class, or across every division where a class is too small to average.
The level change — how often it lands, how often it is stopped. Career UFC rates, straight off the tape.
Rate bars run to the population’s 95th percentile (5.19 takedowns / 15m); a fighter above it pins the bar. Percentages are drawn on their own axis.
Career UFC takedown rates exactly as UFCStats publishes them: takedowns landed per 15 minutes, completion rate, submission attempts per 15 minutes, and the share of takedowns tried on them that they stuffed. Attempts per 15 is the one derived figure — landed ÷ completion rate — and it is omitted wherever either input is missing. UFCStats writes 0% where no attempt was recorded at all, so a percentage of exactly zero reads “n/a” here rather than as a measured rate. “Field” is the average fighter in that weight class, or across every division where a class is too small to average.
Pro record: 28-5. In the UFC: 11-5. Justin Gaethje’s last 8 UFC bouts, most recent first — the result in the cage, not our pick.
Straight off the official UFC fight record. Card names are left off on purpose: the only event labels in our data are derived, and we’d rather print nothing than print one that’s wrong.
14 post-fight bonuses since the UFC’s bonus programme began in 2006 — 10 Fight of the Night, 4 Performance of the Night.
| Date | Award | Opponent | Event | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-14 | FOTN | Fight of the Night | Ilia Topuria | UFC Freedom 250 |
| 2026-01-24 | FOTN | Fight of the Night | Paddy Pimblett | UFC 324: Gaethje vs. Pimblett |
| 2025-03-08 | FOTN | Fight of the Night | Rafael Fiziev | UFC 313: Pereira vs. Ankalaev |
| 2024-04-13 | FOTN | Fight of the Night | Max Holloway | UFC 300: Pereira vs. Hill |
| 2023-07-29 | POTN | Performance of the Night | Dustin Poirier | UFC 291: Poirier vs. Gaethje 2 |
| 2023-03-18 | FOTN | Fight of the Night | Rafael Fiziev | UFC 286: Edwards vs. Usman 3 |
| 2020-05-09 | POTN | Performance of the Night | Tony Ferguson | UFC 249: Ferguson vs. Gaethje |
| 2020-05-09 | FOTN | Fight of the Night | Tony Ferguson | UFC 249: Ferguson vs. Gaethje |
| 2019-09-14 | POTN | Performance of the Night | Donald Cerrone | UFC Fight Night: Cowboy vs. Gaethje |
| 2019-03-30 | FOTN | Fight of the Night | Edson Barboza | UFC Fight Night: Barboza vs. Gaethje |
| 2018-08-25 | POTN | Performance of the Night | James Vick | UFC Fight Night: Gaethje vs. Vick |
| 2018-04-14 | FOTN | Fight of the Night | Dustin Poirier | UFC Fight Night: Poirier vs. Gaethje |
| 2017-12-02 | FOTN | Fight of the Night | Eddie Alvarez | UFC 218: Holloway vs. Aldo 2 |
| 2017-07-07 | FOTN | Fight of the Night | Michael Johnson | The Ultimate Fighter: Redemption Finale |
The UFC's post-fight bonus programme began in 2006, so every total here is a career total since 2006. A fighter who fought only before then has no bonuses because the award did not exist yet. Fight of the Night is a shared award and is credited to both fighters. Performance, Knockout and Submission of the Night are individual awards, credited to the fighter the official record names.
Awards whose recipient the official list does not name are credited to nobody, so these counts are a floor: 245 of 1,339 Performance of the Night and 1 of 180 Submission of the Night awards are unassigned as of 11 October 2026.
| Date | Opponent | Method | Rd | Event | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-14 | W | Ilia Topuria | KO/TKO | R4 | UFC Freedom 250 |
| 2026-01-24 | W | Paddy Pimblett | Decision (unanimous) | R5 | UFC 324: Gaethje vs. Pimblett |
| 2025-03-08 | W | Rafael Fiziev | Decision (unanimous) | R3 | UFC 313: Pereira vs. Ankalaev |
| 2024-04-13 | L | Max Holloway | KO/TKO | R5 | UFC 300: Pereira vs. Hill |
| 2023-07-29 | W | Dustin Poirier | KO/TKO | R2 | UFC 291: Poirier vs. Gaethje 2 |
| 2023-03-18 | W | Rafael Fiziev | Decision (majority) | R3 | UFC 286: Edwards vs. Usman 3 |
| 2022-05-07 | L | Charles Oliveira | Submission | R1 | UFC 274: Oliveira vs. Gaethje |
| 2021-11-06 | W | Michael Chandler | Decision (unanimous) | R3 | UFC 268: Usman vs. Covington 2 |
| 2020-10-24 | L | Khabib Nurmagomedov | Submission | R2 | UFC 254: Khabib vs. Gaethje |
| 2020-05-09 | W | Tony Ferguson | KO/TKO | R5 | UFC 249: Ferguson vs. Gaethje |
| 2019-09-14 | W | Donald Cerrone | KO/TKO | R1 | UFC Fight Night: Cowboy vs. Gaethje |
| 2019-03-30 | W | Edson Barboza | KO/TKO | R1 | UFC Fight Night: Barboza vs. Gaethje |
| 2018-08-25 | W | James Vick | KO/TKO | R1 | UFC Fight Night: Gaethje vs. Vick |
| 2018-04-14 | L | Dustin Poirier | KO/TKO | R4 | UFC Fight Night: Poirier vs. Gaethje |
| 2017-12-02 | L | Eddie Alvarez | KO/TKO | R3 | UFC 218: Holloway vs. Aldo 2 |
| 2017-07-07 | W | Michael Johnson | KO/TKO | R2 | The Ultimate Fighter: Redemption Finale |
Every date links to that bout’s own page. Card names come from the official event record; where the UFC ran two cards on one date, or that record has no row for it, the Event column is left empty rather than filled with a guess.
Justin Gaethje’s official weigh-ins — the weight the commission read off the scale, and the limit it had to be under.
| Date | Opponent | Weight / limit | Division | Source | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-14 | Ilia Topuria | 155 / 155 | MADE | Lightweight | UFC.com |
| 2026-01-24 | Paddy Pimblett | 155 / 155 | MADE | Lightweight | UFC.com |
Weigh-in results cover the 31 UFC cards held in 2026 so far — 24 January 2026 to 12 September 2026. Earlier years are not on file yet, so a fighter with no row here is not a fighter who never missed weight.
The 13 cities Justin Gaethje has fought a UFC bout in. Every pin was looked up by name in OpenStreetMap’s gazetteer and stored with the answer it gave; nothing here is estimated.
Coastline: Natural Earth (public domain). Pins: © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL. Every host city and camp on one map.
Fights that have never been made, between fighters who are ranked right now. Our read on each one is on its own page, with no betting market behind it — because there is no market on a fight nobody has booked. None of it is a pick, and none of it is graded.