WASHINGTON, June 10 -- Justin Gaethje did not swing first. That distinction belongs to his father.

When John Ray Gaethje sat down for a video breakdown of his son's upcoming title fight, he called Ilia Topuria "another short guy" - beer in hand, casual, the way a man talks when he doesn't think the words will travel far. They traveled everywhere. Topuria, the undefeated UFC lightweight champion, saw the clip and replied the way he tends to reply to things: calmly, specifically, and with a threat folded inside a compliment. He told Gaethje Sr. that he already knew what he knew.

That might have been the end of it. Instead it became the beginning of something uglier. Within days, Justin Gaethje told Fox Sports Australia that Topuria was "a...