Gaethje vs. Topuria 2? Jon Anik Bets on a White House Rematch

Ilia Topuria's first professional defeat might not cost him much time at all. According to UFC commentator Jon Anik, there are internal conversations about running back Justin Gaethje vs. Topuria, the fight that headlined UFC White House on June 14 and ended with Topuria's corner throwing in the towel. That corner stoppage handed Gaethje the undisputed lightweight title and dealt Topuria the first loss of his MMA career.

There's an obvious problem with that plan: Gaethje has already said he won't compete again until 2027, pointing to the toll the Topuria fight took on him. That leaves a stacked 155-pound division circling an empty title picture. Charles Oliveira (37-11, 22 submissions) and Max Holloway both hold wins over Gaethje, while #2-ranked Arman Tsarukyan (23-3) meets Mauricio Ruffy at UFC 331 in what almost everyone reads as a title eliminator.

Anik's Read on the Logjam

Anik's pitch is to keep sorting the contenders while Gaethje recovers. He'd book Oliveira against Paddy Pimblett and even float the BMF belt to sweeten it, framing that matchup as every bit the eliminator that Tsarukyan-Ruffy is. His logic is simple enough: there's a lot to untangle at the top, and two eliminators clean up the queue faster than one.

The wrinkle is why he still thinks Topuria jumps the line. Anik reasons that a promoter sitting on a name as big as Topuria — fresh off a card as massive as the White House event — would rather put him straight back into a championship setting than match him with Pimblett. He also questioned whether the decision to fight again even belongs to Gaethje, suggesting the new champ cares more about show money than about who's standing across from him.

Anik added that if you take manager Ali Abdelaziz at his word, Gaethje is fighting again regardless of any temptation to retire on top. He also noted that a finish for Tsarukyan over Ruffy could get that fight made quickly — Tsarukyan's last outing was a second-round arm-triangle submission of Dan Hooker, so the closing ability is there.

For now it's speculation, and Anik framed it as exactly that. But his read, as of late August, is that a Gaethje-Topuria sequel would be enormous and is the likeliest outcome. Whether Gaethje's 2027 timeline survives contact with that kind of money is the real question hanging over the lightweight division.