'The Irishman's retired, I want a REAL fighter!' Gaethje calls for title shot after stopping Cerrone

Justin Gaethje won the battle of the UFC's lightweight crowd-pleasers at UFC Vancouver with a first-round finish of Donald Cerrone, then called for a title fight against either Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson.

Gaethje unleashed his trademark leg kicks and power punches as he proved simply too powerful for Cerrone. And after connecting with a big right hand that dropped "Cowboy" to his knees, "The Highlight" unloaded a thunderous salvo of uppercuts to force referee Jerin Valel to step in and call a stop to the contest at the 4:18 mark in the opening round.

"Dude, he's so tough!" he said after the fight as he relived the stoppage.

"That was my friend, I didn't want to keep punching him."

Gaethje, a former lightweight champion with the now rebranded World Series of Fighting Promotion (now the PFL), revealed how he motivates himself to produce thrilling performances time and time again inside the octagon, saying his drive comes from his mindset of always having something to prove to people.

"Every time I walk out here I question everything on purpose," he explained.

"I think they're better than me, I think they're working harder than me. I have something to prove to myself every time I step in here and I will never let myself down. Max effort is all I expect from myself. With that, I will be satisfied, no matter what."

And when asked whether he had an Irishman (Conor McGregor) or a Russian (Khabib) in his crosshairs, Gaethje didn't hesitate.

"The Irishman's retired, I want a REAL fighter!" he declared.

"I want the winner of Tony and Khabib. I want to fight Khabib before he's gone. And if Tony wins, nobody's going to miss this fight, we could put a million people in a stadium!"