The UFC Freedom 250 took place on June 14 at the White House in Washington, U.S. It was the first UFC event and first major professional sporting event ever held there.
The most anticipated event was the lightweight title fight between Ilia Topuria and Justin Gaethje. Gaethje defeated Topuria by technical knockout (corner stoppage) in round four.
Going into the fight, it was clear that Topuria was the favourite to win by critics and fans.
Everything was going as expected until Gaethje was able to land hits as hard as a truck, a phrase used by Khabib Nurmagomedov.
Topuria heavily leaned backward, overloading his hips and reducing his ability to move his head, which remained in the centre. Gaethje exploited this by repeatedly landing jabs and uppercuts, often using takedown threats to draw Topuria’s posture forward before striking.
Topuria eventually gained momentum with body shots and strong grappling pressure, attempting multiple submissions. However, he was unable to finish the fight, and those efforts appeared to drain his energy reserves.
As the fight continued, Gaethje kept targeting Topuria’s damaged eye with accurate jabs while maintaining his composure under pressure. With his vision compromised and his energy fading, Topuria became less effective offensively. Gaethje’s positioning, durability and ability to capitalize on Topuria’s defensive reactions ultimately gave him the advantage.
After round four ended, with Topuria in the corner, it was announced that Gaethje was the winner by technical knockout.
With the win, Gaethje now has a record of 28-5-0, while Topuria fell to 17-1-0 lightweight division.
In a post-fight interview, Gaethje said, “I wouldn’t recommend this to my enemy. We are some of the toughest people on this earth, mentally, physically, all these guys up here, and all the guys that lost tonight.”
Gaethje also spoke about what the win meant to him personally, saying, “I can’t tell you how blessed I am to have made it this far […] I think I did a pretty good job tonight.”
Reflecting on the fight with Topuria, Gaethje noted, “he’s very good, I mean, my liver still hurts […] The body shots were crazy. When he didn’t get the finish at the end of the second round, I think it really took his spirit.” Gaethje added, “in the third round, when I started landing those jabs, when he started finding his back foot, I knew something was different.” He finished simply, “this is a crazy sport, I love it.”
