Newly crowned lightweight champion Justin Gaethje has hinted that he’s leaning towards putting off the idea of retiring for the time being, but he’s not interested in giving Ilia Topuria an immediate rematch.

After his beatdown of Topuria at the White House, the 37-year-old Gaethje had said he was going to take time to think over whether he wanted to hang up his gloves or not, but a week later it seems like he’s already close to making up his mind.

“Right now I’m planning on [continuing],” Gaethje said on Joe Rogan’s podcast. “There’s not something natural in me that feels like it’s over. I can’t say that I have a name. [Ilia] doesn’t get a rematch. He can try but he doesn’t get one. He quit on the stool, I stopped him twice, what else do I have to f***ing do?

“His next challenge can’t be me. He needs to fight Paddy [Pimblett] or someone like that.”

Gaethje also went on to predict that Topuria wouldn’t be the same fighter going forward after he shut down his aura of invincibility, just as he did to Tony Ferguson back in 2020.

“The odds are f**king great against that right now,” Gaethje said of Topuria’s chances of bouncing back to his best. “I hope he does, and I know he has the skill to be a champion again. However, same thing with Tony Ferguson. I didn’t break Tony Ferguson’s confidence. I changed the perception of his opponents of him and that is a huge factor when you go in there.

“Before this, he was the guy you couldn’t get through, that you couldn’t push through, that you couldn’t survive with. And once I showed people that all you’ve got to do is get through that, then nobody is ever going to go in there thinking he’s unbeatable now. And that was his identity. That’s going to be such a tough task for him, to fight people that aren’t scared of him.”