
Rafael Fiziev believes that Justin Gaethje’s UFC 286 victory was not clean at all, claiming it was the eye-poking incident that led to the said win. However, the No. 2 lightweight fighter confidently negated the claim, pointing out the error in the former opponent’s narrative.
Fiziev and Gaethje met at UFC 286 in March alst year in London. The fight between the two was interesting, but it ultimately ended up favoring Gaethje’s side via majority decision. However, although almost more than a year has already passed, Fiziev is still unconvinced that “The Highlight” won the fight fair and square.
In his recent interview with The AllStar, “Ataman” lambasted the fellow fighter, claiming Gaethje only got the chance to deliver a better performance after the eye-poke incident and spent most of the time running away from him.
“He ran away from me for two rounds,” Fiziev said. “He started to win me only after eye poke, because my eye doesn’t see anything. There was a big white circle on my right eye all fight. I didn’t see anything with my right eye.
“He fought only good after the eye poke and Round 3 when I started to tire. But he ran away two rounds. He run, run, run. Yeah, maybe my game plan was sh*t, and I did a lot of sh*t in this fight; (I) didn’t listen to my corner, didn’t follow my game plan. But still, he ran away for two rounds.”
Needless to say, Gaethje is not impressed with the accusations of the Azerbaijani fighter. As such, the former interim lightweight champ recalled the details of their fight to negate the allegations.
“Not a good look here,” wrote Gaaethje on X. “I hit him so hard he forgot which eye got poked. Your right eye got torched by my right hand, kid.”
No switch up. He’s very talented. I think he is making a mistake in not looking forward to the future which can be very promising for him. I’m surprised he is saying this as it was clearly the other eye 🤷♂️
— Justin Gaethje 🇺🇸 (@Justin_Gaethje) January 31, 2024
With the past being recalled by the two fighters, UFC arranging a rematch between them is not impossible. However, that would still be far in the future as the two fighters still have other priorities at the moment. While Fiziev still needs to recover from his ACL injury after his loss to Mateusz Gamrot last September, Gaethje is gearing up to defend his BMF title against Max Holloway at UFC 300 in April. After this, the current BMF king is hoping to get a fight against Islam Makhachev, who also wishes to face him in the cage in the future.