The UFC 313 co-headliner is an appreciable lightweight rematch between Justin Gaethje and Rafael Fiziev. 

At first, Dan “The Hangman” Hooker was scheduled to fight Justin Gaethje. We all were expecting some astounding fireworks inside the octagon, but Hooker suffered an arm fracture resulting in an unfortunate withdrawal from the highly anticipated fight. 

Fans wondered, who would replace an audacious fighter like Hooker? Gaethje’s former opponent, Rafael “Ataman” Fiziev ended his year-long hiatus to save the eminence of the co-main event. 

How To Watch Justin Gaethje vs. Rafael Fiziev?

Justin Gaethje vs. Rafael Fiziev is the co-main event of UFC 313 which is headlined by Alex Pereira defending his light heavyweight championship against Magomed Ankalaev. 

The fight can be streamed on ESPN+ (USA), TNT Sports (UK), and Kayo Sports (Australia). Please check your respective channels to get more information. 

Statistical Match Up.

How Justin Gaethje beats Rafael Fiziev?

Justin “The Highlight” Gaethje is an actual phenom. As the former undefeated lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov stated: “Gaethje hits like a truck” should be a good enough testament to explain his fighting prowess. 

To explain Justin Gaethje’s fighting style in one word, we can say he’s a steamroller. He likes to engage with his opponents in close range and exchange heavy strikes. Overhands, looping hooks, and uppercuts are Gaethje’s staple punches and he packs an unbelievable amount of power in those shots. 

Gaethje also uses a lot of cheeky inside and outside leg kicks in his fights. You can just Imagine being Gaethje’s opponent and getting utterly irritated by his constant barrage of leg kicks. In addition, he has also learned a solid way to feint his right hand and follow up with a high kick.

Against Rafael Fiziev, Justin Gaethje doesn’t need to change much. The Azerbaijani is stepping in on short notice, so there’s a high doubt that his team had enough time to adjust Fiziev’s fighting style accordingly. 

Both fight similarly with their hands up while loading up hooks, but in the long run, Gaethje is always going to have an advantage because of his head movement and his ability to land damaging leg kicks. 

In the first fight, Fiziev was on the front foot most of the time pressuring. He wanted to attack Gaethje with lead hooks, so Fiziev followed him against the cage to land big shots. But, each time Gaethje evaded them and countered with either an overhand or a right hook. In the third round, Gaethje found an uppercut + jab combination that destroyed Fiziev, because he became a stationary target. 

After tasting defeat against Gaethje, Rafael Fiziev faced Mateusz Gamrot in a UFC Fight Night main event. Before tearing his ACL, Fiziev was doing good, but nothing exceptional. Despite knowing that he’s susceptible to jabs, Fiziev didn’t show much improvement, because a grappler like Gamrot was able to land some really good jabs against him. 

If Gaethje notices that Fiziev is using the same approach that he used in their last fight, then he should start landing that jab + uppercut combination. Also, he should target Fiziev’s body more with jabs and hooks. So, it has to be overall damage instead of headhunting. Gaethje should take 15% power from his shots and be more precise.

Besides the striking, Gaethje should also use his wrestling which he never uses. He has a background in high school and collegiate wrestling, but why never applies it during fights is always surprising. If he mixes up striking with grappling, he will be unstoppable. 

How Rafael Fiziev beats Justin Gaethje?

Rafael Fiziev is making a comeback after fighting a critical injury like a torn ACL. His being -162 favorite in the first fight against Justin Gaethje, showed us that people were ready to pick a rising contender against a legend. 

However, Justin Gaethje proved to be more than a tough challenge. His face got smothered with Gaethje’s relentless fierce strikes and there was no way to recover from this amount of beating. 

Now, Fiziev has the chance to avenge that loss and also get straight back among the top lightweights by defeating Justin Gaethje. But, how he’s gonna do so? Well, there are some ways “Ataman” can pose a significant threat. 

Let’s take us back again to their first fight. If somebody observed that fight closely could easily identify that Fiziev’s body kicks were the most damaging shots against Gaethje. He wanted to do even more damage but didn’t allow himself to be more precise with them. Fiziev landed some decent punches, yet missed many. 

To win this fight against Justin Gaethje, Rafael Fiziev has to change his approach. The way he usually fights with his hands up and marching with hooks is not going to help him. Instead, he should stick to his jabs and mix them up with body kicks which he utilized very well during the first fight. 

Max Holloway has shown us kind of a blueprint to defeat somebody like Gaethje. He used a lot of straight punches and spinning back kicks to nullify Gaethje’s power strikes, and eventually, those strikes showed their effects in later rounds. So, Fiziev should stick to his jabs and follow it up with straight shots. Another thing Fiziev has to remember is to check those leg kicks which Gaethje is definitely going to use. 

Fiziev has a solid takedown defense, so it can be confidently said that he’s gonna stuff them all. 

Final Prediction. 

This fight is absolutely the second most anticipated after the main event. It’s a high-profile rematch, and a lot is depending on it, especially for Gaethje. He is steadily moving towards the end of his career and after losing the BMF belt brutally against Max Holloway, it’s going to be difficult for him to climb back into the rankings and fight for the championship. So, Gaethje needs a win here to remain a strong lightweight contender.

To provide a prediction, sidekick picks Justin Gaethje to beat Rafael Fiziev via unanimous decision. 

READ MORE: Amanda Serrano vs Katie Taylor 3 Announced For Historic Women’s Card At MSG

• Facebook
• Instagram
• X