Tony Ferguson retired in 2024. Well\u2026 he did somewhat.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After putting half a glove down indicating that he was kinda sorta retired, it didn\u2019t take long for Ferguson to return to fighting. The former UFC Interim Lightweight Champion was on a massive 8-fight skid that started with Justin Gaethje at UFC 249.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite his losing streak, Ferguson will go down as one of the best lightweights of the modern generation, but his downfall came swift and seemingly out of the blue following\u00a0dominant\u00a0wins over Anthony Pettis and Donald Cerrone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After negotiating his release from the UFC, Tony\u00a0would make the jump over to the Global Fight League in January 2025. He was originally scheduled to fight Dillon Danis on May 25th at GFL 2. However, the new MMA company folded without a single show taking place. That didn\u2019t phase Ferguson too much as he quickly ended up at Misfits Boxing. The UFC star is scheduled to fight Salt Papi for the interim middleweight title.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ferguson talked to MMA Fighting and looked back on his record-setting losing streak in UFC.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m fighting these guys, like a bunch of puds, they weren\u2019t around for the longest f*cking time on my tear,\u201d Ferguson told said. \u201cBecause they didn\u2019t want to f*cking get bloody or have me wear their blood while I\u2019m smiling and shit like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was fighting these guys, it\u2019s kind of like I was doing it for the fan base and to be like, yeah, I\u2019m taking these opportunities, I\u2019m not going to let them ice the kicker. I\u2019m going to take these opportunities. I didn\u2019t get cut from the UFC. We both [shook hands] and we both walked away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ferguson was asked whether he was still interested in fighting in MMA and the former UFC star made it clear that an opportunity is always on the table.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t give a f*ck what anybody thinks about me,\u201d Ferguson said. \u201c\u2018[Is] Tony Ferguson in his prime?\u2019 I don\u2019t give a f*ck. The interest is there right now. It doesn\u2019t matter who the f*ck is going to step in front of me. You could put anybody in front of me come that night. I\u2019m going to go in there and give the best possible version of myself that I possibly can because I\u2019m uncomfortable in practice right now. The last four to five years, I\u2019ve been comfortable in practice. I\u2019ve been miserable in the fight because I just didn\u2019t want to f*cking do it. I\u2019m uncomfortable in practice right now, getting rounds and making myself feel that way so that way when I get inside that ring, I\u2019m going to be comfortable as f*ck.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it interests me, I\u2019m going to go in there, and I\u2019m going to do it. I\u2019m that kind of guy that has that kind of talent to be able to pick it up because that\u2019s the way my parents raised me. If I\u2019m going to pick up and do something, you better do it to the f*cking best that you could.\u201d<\/p>\n
Check out the full interview where Ferguson talks about his upcoming fight, his transition into boxing and so much more.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tony Ferguson retired in 2024. Well\u2026 he did somewhat.\u00a0 After putting half a glove down indicating that he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85,11084,787],"class_list":{"0":"post-99233","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-mma","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tony-ferguson","14":"tag-ufc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}