{"id":38823,"date":"2026-06-16T23:18:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T23:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/news\/news\/Coach-gives-behindthescenes-glimpse-of-Justin-Gaethjes-championship-victory-201550"},"modified":"2026-06-16T23:18:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T23:18:06","slug":"coach-gives-behind-the-scenes-glimpse-of-justin-gaethjes-championship-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/coach-gives-behind-the-scenes-glimpse-of-justin-gaethjes-championship-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Coach gives behind-the-scenes glimpse of Justin Gaethje\u2019s championship victory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/div>\n

Justin
\nGaethje<\/a> entered the White House as the
\nUFC<\/a>‘s biggest underdog and left as the biggest winner of the
\nnight. After ending Ilia
\nTopuria<\/a>‘s undefeated streak, Gaethje took home his belt and two
\nbonuses.<\/p>\n

The American’s ground coach, Jorge
\nSantiago<\/a>, spoke with Sherdog.com on Monday about the victory
\nand revealed interesting details about what went on behind the
\nscenes at
\nUFC White House<\/a>. Having won belts in organizations such as
\nSengoku and Strikeforce, the Brazilian revealed that he was moved
\nby the show.<\/p>\n

\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

“It was a unique experience. There will never be a show like this.
\nI never imagined seeing the political capital of the USA closed to
\nour sport. Everything was approved by the Secret Service. After
\nall, they had already tried to assassinate the president twice, so
\nit was an impressive level of care. We would pass through a gate
\nand there was an FBI clearance; when we got in the car we couldn’t
\ntalk to the agents or we would have to go back and do it all
\nagain,” said the Brazilian. \u201cWhen we arrived at the White House, I
\nsimply couldn\u2019t believe it. I kept looking at those walls full of
\nstories that we\u2019re used to seeing in so many movies. I felt like an
\nalien there. I just kept thinking that our sport had managed to
\nreach places we never imagined.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Game Plan for Topuria<\/h2>\n

Santiago revealed that from the beginning of the camp, jabs were
\nthe key to the game plan to neutralize the Georgian-Spaniard. \u201cWe knew that Topuria was going to move forward trying to fight in
\nthe pocket as always,\u201d Santiago said. \u201cThis work of controlling the
\ndistance with jabs was brilliant because it opened up Topuria in
\nthe first round. The idea was to use jabs before he felt
\ncomfortable in the pocket, then look for the clinch and angled
\nusing uppercuts. That was the strategy to neutralize Topuria’s
\nclose-range fighting, and it was successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Brazilian made a point to credit the team\u2019s head coach for
\nGaethje\u2019s success.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrevor Wittman is a brilliant guy,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll tell you,
\nhaving gone through ATT, Blackzilians, I’ve trained with some of
\nthe greatest coaches this sport has ever seen, and this guy is
\nreally very special. He takes something positive from every
\ntraining session and makes the student shine.\u201d<\/p>\n

A black belt under Ricardo Lib\u00f3rio, Santiago revealed that Gaethje
\nwas very prepared on the ground for this fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe worked very hard for this fight. I\u2019m blessed that he believes
\nin my work through Kamaru [Usman], and he\u2019s evolved a lot,\u201d
\nSantiago said. That [brabo] choke he locked in on Topuria, he was
\nlanding on everyone in training.\u201d<\/p>\n

Retirement?<\/h2>\n

Regarding retirement, Santiago believes Gaethje will defend his
\nbelt before all is said and done.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually, his plan was to retire after the victory over Paddy
\nPimblett<\/a>, but now after this historic achievement, I think
\nhe\u2019ll take a break and come back in a fight that makes a lot of
\nsense for him,\u201d Santiago said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it will be against
\nthe winner of Conor
\nMcGregor<\/a> vs. Max
\nHolloway<\/a>, a rematch with Charles
\nOliveira<\/a> for the unification of the BMF and lightweight titles,
\nor a rematch with Topuria himself, but it will certainly have to be
\nsomething very big.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Justin Gaethje entered the White House as the UFC‘s biggest underdog and left as the biggest winner of the night. After ending Ilia Topuria‘s undefeated streak, Gaethje took home his belt and two bonuses. The American’s ground coach, Jorge Santiago, spoke with Sherdog.com on Monday about the victory and revealed interesting details about what went […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38824,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-martial-arts-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}