Gaethje shocks Topuria to win UFC lightweight title at White House event

In possibly the biggest upset successful UFC history, ‌Gaethje becomes champion aft Topuria’s country stops fight.

American ‌Justin Gaethje turned the tables connected Ilia ⁠Topuria to ⁠claim a daze win and instrumentality the lightweight UFC crown astatine the “UFC Freedom 250” lawsuit connected ⁠the lawns of the White House.

After Topuria (17-1) edged a thrilling archetypal 2 rounds connected Sunday night, Gaethje (28-5) stunned the Spaniard ⁠with a crunching close manus earlier pursuing it up with a brutal flurry of jabs that near his opponent’s look swollen and bloodied.

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Topuria appeared to person occupation ‌seeing and was checked by a doc earlier continuing done the fourth, but his country threw successful the towel earlier the last round.

“I cannot adjacent judge it … I knew I was going to person to get done the archetypal round, his skills ⁠are unmatched erstwhile he’s fresh,” Gaethje ⁠said.

“But my durability, my tenacity and my bosom were going to transportation maine through.”

Gaethje leaves the Octagon aft his triumph [AFP]

The bout headlined the archetypal nonrecreational sporting lawsuit to ⁠be hosted astatine the White House, a cardinal portion of US President ⁠Donald Trump’s celebrations of the nation’s ⁠250th anniversary.

In the co-main event, France’s Ciryl Gane dominated Brazil’s Alex Pereira earlier scoring a stunning second-round knockout triumph to go the ‌interim UFC heavyweight champion.

Pereira, a erstwhile airy heavyweight and middleweight champion, was looking to go the archetypal UFC ‌fighter ‌to triumph titles successful 3 divisions aft stepping up to heavyweight.

O’Malley beats Zahabi, Hokit stops Lewis

Sean O’Malley backed up his presumption arsenic 1 of the US’ astir fashionable mixed martial artists, defeating Aiemann Zahabi with a walk-off knockout that volition beryllium a staple of UFC item reels for years to come.

O’Malley, ever the showman, gave a military-style salute to the assemblage of work members and the president’s ⁠invitees arsenic Zahabi (14-3) was falling to the canvas. The triumph puts O’Malley (20-3) firmly backmost into bantamweight rubric contention and ⁠he’ll apt beryllium adjacent up for champion Petr Yan, whom helium called retired successful his post-fight interview.

Josh Hokit continued his emergence up the heavyweight division, backing up his viral and arguable fight-week antics by finishing the UFC’s knockout king, Derrick Lewis, with an extended operation of punches astatine 4:09 successful the 2nd round.

It was a ascendant show from Hokit ⁠through and through, arsenic helium astir finished Lewis (29-14) aggregate times successful the archetypal circular arsenic good to amended to 10-0.

Mauricio Ruffy of Brazil’s esteemed Fighting Nerds registered different connection performance, stopping 40-year-old Michael Chandler astatine 4:29 successful ⁠the archetypal circular of their lightweight bout. Ruffy (14-2) wounded Chandler (23-11) with a stunning roundhouse footwear and ⁠ended the combat with a fistful of finishing blows to Chandler’s head.

The combat could precise good beryllium the extremity of Chandler’s UFC vocation and fundamentally diminishes immoderate accidental helium had astatine warring Conor McGregor successful the future, whom helium was reportedly successful enactment to look with a victory.

Bo Nickal earned his 2nd consecutive victory, finishing chap American Kyle Daukaus with a vicious ‌right followed by a bid of elbows astatine 4:34 successful the archetypal circular successful their middleweight fight. Nickal (9-1), a erstwhile All-American wrestler astatine Penn State, has present finished 3 of his six wins successful the UFC by KO/TKO and is 6-1 successful the UFC since his 2023 debut. ‌Daukaus ‌fell to 17-5.

After an hour-long hold owed to rain, Brazilian featherweight Diego Lopes knocked retired Albuquerque’s Steve Garcia with an explosive operation of punches astatine 2:42 successful the 2nd round.

It was an awesome come-from-behind effort by Lopes (28-8), who was unquestionably losing the featherweight combat earlier Garcia (19-6) made the determination to commercialized punches with him.