Justin Gaethje Beats Paddy Pimblett By UD to Win Interim Lightweight Title at UFC 324

Justin Gaethje is once again the interim UFC lightweight champion after scoring a surprise unanimous decision win over Paddy Pimblett in the UFC 234 main event from Las Vegas.

Gaethje wasted no time in putting Pimblett to the test. He was aggressive early on and rocked Pimblett with his hands and put him on the mat with an uppercut. 

Pimblett hung in the pocket and was able to get through the round. Gaethje's go-for-broke aggression opened up opportunities for Pimblett to counter as well. 

Gaethje also had the better moments of Round 2. After dragging Pimblett to the ground with a headlock, he landed a nice knee coming out of the break. Then he floored him again with a clean combination. 

Pimblett's resilience started to pay off in the third. Gaethje appeared to slow down after two rounds of frenetic pace and he landed some offense of his own. 

Gaethje has never been one to back down when things get competitive, though. He answered quickly with another knockdown in the fourth round and put together another strong round in response. 

Pimblett earned respect for hanging in despite several clean shots from Gaethje. 

However, his toughness wasn't quite enough to convince the judges and The Highlight picked up a massive win.

Gaethje is no stranger to winning the interim title in an upset. His win over Tony Ferguson at UFC 249 remains one of the biggest wins of his thrilling career.

The 37-year-old once again found himself as the underdog in an interim title fight with Pimblett, a rising star in the division.

Now, that he has another upset on his resume, he's looking forward to doing something he couldn't do last time: Win the actual belt.

"I want to fight Ilia. I want to play spoiler, just like I did with Khabib [Nurmagomedov] and Tony [Ferguson]...," he told Jed Meshew of MMA Fighting. "There's going to be no Paddy and Ilia. I'm going to do the same thing I did for that fight, and then I'm going to fight Ilia on the White House card, if he's ready to fight again. We'll see when he's ready again."

Topuria is the No. 2 pound-for-pound fighter in the UFC's most recent rankings, but his decision to take time off for the first quarter of the year has left the lightweight division with an interim title situation.

Of course, the summer is going to be a highly sought after date for a lot of fighters. There's a potential card expected to take place at the White House in June that could be one of the biggest in the history of the UFC.

With Gaethje's popularityand Topuria's recent dominance, it would make a lot of sense to see that fight in the biggest spotlight possible.