The refreshing honesty of Justin Gaethje's search for his first defeat

Even on Instagram, Justin Gaethje can’t help but be himself. It’s not just the posts, either. It’s the comments.

You want to jump in his mentions and tell him that he’s going to get knocked out some day? That his perfect record won’t stay that way forever with the way he fights? Pfft, why don’t you tell him something he doesn’t know. Better yet, see if you can get him to care.

“Of course my luck will run out,” Gaethje recently wrote in response to one Instagram critic. “I put it on the line for a living.”

It’s far from the first time he’s expressed such a sentiment. After signing with the UFC after an undefeated run as WSOF lightweight champion, Gaethje (18-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC) made it clear that he wasn’t promising us perfection. In fact, he said, the only thing he was promising is that he “will get knocked out here in the next, like, 10 fights, because it’s a game of freaking centimeters and fractions of seconds.”

Anyone who thought he might temper his enthusiasm for risky though exciting exchanges only needed to see his debut, wherein he bounded right up the line of unconsciousness before coming back to break Michael Johnson in one of the best fights of 2017.

Now it’s time to take on Eddie Alvarez (28-5 MMA, 3-2 UFC) at UFC 218 in Detroit on Saturday night, and, look, Gaethje’s not going to guarantee a win. How could he, especially with the way he likes to fight? You stand there flinging those little gloves at each other’s heads, sure it’s fun to watch, but it’s also kind of a coin flip at times. Sooner or later, you’re going to be the sleeper rather than the sleepee.

What’s unique about Gaethje is how easily and even eagerly he embraces this fact. Yes, he knows he could lose in devastating fashion this way. Yes, that scares him a little bit. No, he’s not going to change.

“I would rather lose than not get a finish,” Gaethje said this week. “I don’t want to win a boring decision. That’s the last thing I want. It’s impossible. It’s either I get finished, or he gets finished. That’s how I fight. It’s life or death.”

A lot of fighters talk like that. Not so many actually live it the way Gaethje does, and it’s not hard to understand why. As much as the UFC publicly praises the virtues of a fan-friendly fighting style, a loss at the wrong time can be the difference between grabbing a life-changing payday or seeing it hover just out of your reach.

Remember Donald Cerrone, another fighter known for his complete lack of caution, leading to typically thrilling results? When he complained about his pay, the response from UFC President Dana White was almost automatic: “You’ve got to win them all.”

But to deliver those epic Gaethje-esque wars, you must take risks. And when you take enough risks, you’re probably not going to win them all. Defeat hasn’t found Gaethje yet, but he’s the first person to tell you that it can, it will, and he’s not going to run from it. If anything, he seems to be charging straight at it, face first and fists a-blazing, daring it to do its worst.

Fans love him for that, and how can you not? He’s a guaranteed good time, easily worth the price on pay-per-view, in part because what he’s not guaranteeing is a win at any cost. Instead, he promises you the opposite. He freely admits that failure is out there waiting for him. The way he fights, it’s like he’s daring it to come and find him. And who doesn’t want to watch a man who’s on a mission like that?

For more on UFC 218, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.