Tony Ferguson locked horns with Justin Gaethje for the interim lightweight championship in April at UFC 249. Ferguson suffered a TKO loss in the fifth round. In the process, he once against lost out on championship opportunity against Khabib Nurmagomedov. It’s uncertain what’s next for the former interim lightweight champion, who remains as the only fighter to not have fought for the title belt despite being on an 11fight win-streak in UFC’s one of the most competitive division.
After picking up a victory against Donald Cerrone in 2018, Tony Ferguson was away from the octagon, prepping for the much-anticipated bout against Khabib Nurmagoemdov at UFC 249. However, as fate would have it, the bout was canceled for a record fifth time after the coronavirus pandemic brought about travel restrictions rendering Khabib Nurmagiemdov unable to move out of Russia. Tony made a quick turnaround against Justin Gaethje within a week after the fall-out of Khabib vs Tony was confirmed.
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Tony Ferguson suffered his first loss inside the octagon
Despite the cancellation, Tony made weight at the first stipulated time of UFC 249 and again made weight two weeks later for his interim lightweight bout against Justin Gaethje at UFC 249.
Gaethje dominated Ferguson inside the octagon, who looked slow and stiff with his movements. Gaethje came out with a brilliant gameplan and kept the fight on the foot throughout the five rounds. Many MMA analysts called Ferguson’s performance slow, and unlike him. While Ferguson did maintain that he was training all this while for a grappler, the sudden change of plans to go against a puncher may have a lot to do with how it turned out. However, after watching Tony Ferguson’s performance against Justin Gaethje, one thing was certain, Tony needed to make adjustments to his game.
And that’s what Tony Ferguson seems to be doing during his time off from fighting. As Ferguson recovers from his last fight, the El Cucuy has wasted no time in hopping back to training. In a video posted on Instagram, Tony Ferguson mentioned his plans going forward.
“Making a few changes,” Tony Ferguson said in the Instagram posted while stating that he is back to training. Needless to say, the loss must have brought out a lot of re-evaluation of techniques for Tony Ferguson. It will be interesting to see how he bounces back from here. The number of interesting option going forward remain scarce. However, many fight fans believe that Tony Ferguson should face Conor McGregor next.