Justin Gaethje was not happy with the referee from his fight against Michael Chandler at UFC 268. Mike Beltran was the third man in the cage that night.
Justin Gaethje was upset with the way Mike Beltran handled the accidental foul from Michael Chandler at UFC 268. Gaethje was hit by a big punch when he turned around after getting fouled. He was upset that the referee didn't step in and stop the punch from happending.
“I hate to critique the guy – he’s human, and we make mistakes,” Gaethje said on the Anik and Florian podcast (transcription via MMAFighting). “I just think that … pretty much every ref that I step out there with has a look in their eyes, and it’s a look like they’re shook, like they’re intimidated by what just occurred.
“I understand that, but this is real life. I need them to be in game mode. We’re not dealing with seconds anymore. This is way less than seconds. if you’re going to break action, you’ve got to put your body in there. If you’re going to get hit, that needs to be OK.”
“That was a big punch,” UFC 268's Justin Gaethje said. “What if that would have knocked me out? Those can change the whole direction of a fight. It’s just crazy to me that it wasn’t a big issue, because for me it was a huge issue. That’s $1 million, if I lose, that’s so much money off of my table.”
The anger continued from Justin Gaethje as Mike Beltran didn't seem to take the foul seriously enough at UFC 268.
“So in my mind, I think he’s referencing the punch that just occurred,” Gaethje said. “And so, I’m like, yeah, I’m good, because as a fighter, you never say you’re not good to continue. So then he was like, ‘OK, fight.’ I was like, ‘No, I need my time. He poked me in the eye.’ And he looks directly at me and he says, ‘You said you’re good, fight.’ And he never looked at my eye. He didn’t even take one second to see if I was affected.”
“I just can’t understand how it happened, why it happened, or what the fuck happened,” Gaethje said.
Justin Gaethje was also upset as he heard Mike Beltran try to justify what happened at UFC 268. He would have preferred he just own up to it.
“This is why I’m more upset about it is because he tried to justify it,” Gaethje said. “If you would have just accepted that, he fucked up, then at least I have a picture of why it happened and how it will never happened again. We need to learn from that.”
Justin Gaethje has had issues with referees in the past. Notably in his fight against Donald Cerrone a few years ago. Luckily he won his bout at UFC 268 and obtained his win bonus.
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