Issue 141

May 2016

Hot on the heels of a breakout year, Tony Ferguson won’t settle for anything less than the UFC championship in 2016

Tony Ferguson

UFC Lightweight

Alias: El Cucuy

Age: 32

Team: Knuckleheadz MMA

Record: 20-3

Seven victories, five stoppages and five fight-night bonuses. There are few better winning streaks in the UFC right now. That’s the recent record that has propelled Tony Ferguson above the treacherous waters of MMA’s deepest division and among the sharks circling the lightweight title.

‘El Cucuy’ has been creeping towards the top of the 155lb weight class since his last defeat – to Michael Johnson in 2013. And after a near-flawless campaign last year, he could be just one step away from finally breaking through the glass ceiling and challenging whoever’s the division’s top dog later this year. If there were any doubts about the 32-year-old’s credentials for a championship challenge, they were exorcised after a war with Edson Barboza in December.

Ferguson showed off everything a truly elite mixed martial artist possesses in that three-round war: striking, endurance, improvisation, the ability to take punishment and a killer instinct that triggered the D’Arce choke to finish the dangerous Brazilian late in the fight. It was the perfect end to a phenomenal 12 months in which he’d also defeated seasoned veterans Gleison Tibau and Josh Thomson.

It was a true breakout year for Californian, so it was fitting he was recognized with a nomination for ‘Breakthrough Fighter of the Year’ at the Eighth Annual World MMA Awards. He also got a nod for ‘Submission of the Year’ thanks to the TUF 22 Finale tapout of Barboza. And though he didn’t walk away with a silver statue – Holly Holm and Ronda Rousey did respectively – his place among the sport’s elite was secure.

“I was so excited. I was stoked, but it was also about time,” he tells FO, bluntly. “I’ve been waiting a long time to be mentioned in the Fighters Only Awards. It was awesome to be listed with the quality of fighters I was with, and I believe that I belong right up there with the best of them. I was very happy for the recognition, and my family was also very stoked for me. Next year I want to take a statue home.

“Last year was a tremendous year for me and my squad,” he adds. “We worked really hard making sure every fight I was in trumped the last one. I have plenty of gas in the tank so if they want to give me a title shot, I’m down. I have a V8 engine and I’m ready to rev it, push forward and mow these guys down. There is no scenario in my head where I don’t end it with the title.

“These guys don’t have it in their hearts. They don’t have the passion, the drive. They are switching weight classes left and right and they’re unsure where they are as far as their status in lightweight contention. Rafael dos Anjos is scared. He doesn’t want any part of me. My techniques are growing and my conditioning is always good. I always keep the guys guessing. One of the passions I have is making sure I am relentless inside that Octagon. That’s what I do every time I set foot in there.”

The former TUF champion’s ruthlessness and relentlessness is nothing new. Exciting fights and finishes have always been part of his repertoire. But he did give fans some glimpses of a Tony Ferguson they’d never seen before. For the first time he demonstrated he can take heavy fire from one of the sport’s most dangerous strikers. And now that he’s one of his division’s top-five frontrunners he’s become more vocal than ever in an attempt to lock down a prestige fight.

“It’s fun to get a little more vocal now because I do believe I am the best in the division. I’m proving that every single fight that I go in there. This last fight with Edson Barboza was a war. Nobody has seen me in a battle before. They know I have the chin and the heart to push through that. Now it’s about going in there and finishing the job.

“I’m the boogeyman and I do my damage inside the Octagon. But if you want to hear me talk some s**t we will talk some s**t. We will talk, we will put it down on paper. The amount of time I spend inside the Octagon, my mat time, the amount of time I spend in the practice room to pull off what I pull off inside the Octagon, the way I do things with ease... You have no idea. I don’t train to go to the judges. Hell no. I train to get that finish before that final buzzer goes off.”

Next in ‘El Cucuy’s firing line is undefeated Dagestani grappler Khabib Nurmagomedov. Though ‘The Eagle’ has been out on the sidelines for two years, he has maintained his lofty status in the 155lb pecking order and is likely to be the toughest test of the TUF 13 winner’s career. After all, he was the last man to defeat dos Anjos before he claimed the belt.

But the 22-0 takedown machine doesn’t faze Ferguson. Not at all. “Khabib is the next name on the list,” he adds. “He is just in my way. I couldn’t care less if that dude’s name was Care Bear. He will be finished when he faces me.”

Working nine to five

Why Tony Ferguson hung up his suit

Before he pursued MMA full-time, Ferguson worked in sales. But he reveals the pitfalls of that daily grind meant he wasn’t long for the marketing world.

“One day I was off-site doing a job,” he explains. “I was so, so far away from my actual job site. I just had my tires changed. I was driving and all of a sudden my wheel falls off. I’m in the middle of nowhere, I have no service, I’m in the middle of Michigan and I have zero tools on me. I was out there for hours, man.

“I was in a suit. I walked to this store to get some tools and equipment and I walked all the way back. It was hours. I worked on my car, I pushed the lug nuts out, I had to replace stuff. It was a pain in the ass.

“Hours later I finally fixed it. I was all dirty and I showed back up to my work. They were like, ‘What happened?’ It was s**tty. Little things like that have propelled me into my future and where I am today.”

TUF’est of them all

Success rate sets benchmark

Ferguson’s 91% win rate is the best of any former competitor on The Ultimate Fighter. Not even TJ Dillashaw, Forrest Griffin and Rashad Evans – who all went on to win UFC titles – can match him.