April Fools’ Day is like Daylight Savings Time … it worked for about a year and now everyone is just sick of it.
If you work in news or media, every “report” on April 1st should be taken with a grain of salt, which is why the April 1, 2018 news that Tony Ferguson blew out his knee and got pulled from his Khabib Nurmagomedov lightweight title fight at UFC 223 was met with a slight chuckle and a roll of the eyes.
They wanted us to believe the 34 year-old Ferguson, a master of unorthodox training, tripped over his own two feet and shredded his LCL.
Uh huh.
Unfortunately, the reports turned out to be true and Ferguson was replaced by featherweight champion Max Holloway … right up until he wasn’t. “Blessed” was subsequently yanked by New York State Athletic Commission (NYSAC), who claimed the weight-cutting Hawaiian was medically unfit to compete.
In his stead emerged lightweight veteran Al Iaquinta.
Iaquinta, who now sells real estate and makes fun of UFC in his spare time, was unable to overcome an uncharacteristically-jabby Nurmagomedov atop the UFC 223 pay-per-view (PPV) card and got swept on the judges’ scorecards. “The Eagle” was later rebooked to battle Ferguson at UFC 249; but once again, the fight went up in smoke.
Turns out the fifth time was not the charm.
This story originally appeared on MMA Mania
