Justin Gaethje went out to play golf for a Barstool Sports video and ended up giving a fight recap to someone who badly needed one. During the shoot for Barstool’s Internet Invitational, an influencer who goes by Short Game King told the lightweight champion that he’s a casual UFC guy and that the one fighter he really loves is Paddy Pimblett. Gaethje fought Pimblett in January, and he did not let that slide.
The clip spread after Championship Rounds posted it on X, and Bloody Elbow wrote up the exchange. According to Bloody Elbow, SGK also seemed to get Pimblett’s name wrong and had no idea the Liverpool fighter had fought for UFC gold earlier this year. Gaethje filled him in on the result in about as few words as possible: “I fought him in January, I beat him up. I dog walked that motherf*cker.”
SGK reminded the champ that he doesn’t really watch the UFC, which did not help. “I thought you were American?” Gaethje asked, then pressed him on why he wouldn’t want to see an American beat Pimblett. When SGK backpedaled and said he’d have rooted for Gaethje if he’d known they were playing, Gaethje corrected the verb one more time: “I didn’t play him, I dog walked that motherf er.”
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The fight he forgot
For anyone else who missed it, the January matchup between Gaethje and Pimblett was for the interim lightweight title, and it went the full five rounds. Bloody Elbow called it one of the fights of the year, a bloody back and forth that a lot of fans rank as the most entertaining performance of either man’s career. Gaethje won by unanimous decision.
He didn’t stop there. In June, Gaethje beat Ilia Topuria at the White House to take the undisputed lightweight title, which makes the fan’s version of events even stranger. He was standing on a golf course next to the champion of the division and only knew the guy who lost to him.
Pimblett has made it clear he wants another crack at Gaethje. Bloody Elbow ran a separate story with a headline saying Pimblett revealed an injury delay while prioritizing a Gaethje rematch over his feud with Topuria. No rematch has been booked.
Quick take
I’ll defend SGK a little. Plenty of people find the sport through one personality, and Pimblett is very good at being that personality. But you can’t love a fighter and skip the biggest fight of his life, especially one that went 25 minutes and left both men looking like they’d lost an argument with a cheese grater. Gaethje’s word choice was blunt, though “dog walked” oversells a five-round war that people are still calling a fight of the year candidate. That’s fine. He won it, and he won the next one too, so he gets to describe it however he wants. If Pimblett gets healthy and the rematch happens, SGK has homework: watch the first one before he picks a side again.
