Tony Ferguson claims the old “El Cucuy” is back this weekend at UFC 291. Not like the “El Cucuy” we saw back in September 2022 at UFC 279. That version of Tony Ferguson wasn’t taking things seriously.
That’s according to Tony Ferguson himself, who made some startling revelations about his mindset coming into this latest battle with Bobby Green versus his last couple of outings — the ones that have seen him go 0-5 after a legendary 12 fight winning streak.
“I asked for the fight, I asked for a fight. I want to get back into it, but I wanna get back into it wholeheartedly,” he said during UFC 291 media day (watch the full interview here). “Last couple of fights, I haven’t really been in it. I’m gonna be real with you guys, trying to impress you f—ers is not my forte. I’m going to be real with it, I’m not trying to do that. When we were preparing for Li, I was eating slushies that week.”
“When we had Nate, Nate was hard to take f—ing serious. It was almost like, I didn’t wanna lose, but I’m gonna be real, like here, take your f—ing victory, get the f— outta here, and go make some money. Here, let me slap you on your ass and you can go over there, dude, because you obviously don’t wanna f—ing be here. I’ve helped out the UFC plenty of times, gotten paid, and did my s—.”
Immediately following the loss to Nate, Ferguson admitted he hadn’t been giving it his all in recent fights.
“I’m gonna be real, I was sandbagging,” he said. “I really wasn’t doing anything, my wife called me out.”
But will we finally see the old Tony in the cage against Bobby Green? The Tony that used to leave all his opponents a bloody mess? Or has something switched in Ferguson’s mind permanently where he’s no longer there to win at all cost. This is definitely not very “CSO” of Tony.
This story originally appeared on MMA Mania
