Former UFC interim champion Tony Ferguson is on a terrible skid, having lost seven fights in a row over the past four years. Does he plan to retire? No! In a recent interview, “El Cucuy” said he’ll fight until the wheels come off.
“I’m not retiring,” Ferguson said on the JAXXON podcast. “Nobody is going to tell us what the f— to do. I’m going to fight until the wheels fall off. F— retiring.”
According to former Strikeforce champ Josh Thomson, that’s where we’re at.
“[The wheels] are off. It’s time to move on,” Thomson said on his YouTube show, Weighing In. “It’s a decision that every fighter has to make, and I know that he’s going to have to make it on his own. Maybe there’s a lot of money left on the table and the UFC willing to keep [booking him], but I’m looking at him and I’m thinking, right now you’re just being selfish.”
“He’s got kids and he needs to stop being selfish and start thinking about them,” Thomson continued. “Don’t look at it about yourself, that’s the problem. He’s gotta look at it in terms of where are you gonna be at after this? Are you you going to be able to still throw the ball with your kids? Are you going to still be able to try to wrestle and teach your kids how to wrestle?”
Ferguson was never afraid of a scrap and took a decent amount of damage even back when he was winning. Then there was the Justin Gaethje loss in May 2020 that kicked off the skid — many believe this is the fight that changed Tony forever given the beating he absorbed. Things haven’t gotten better as “El Cucuy” slipped down the rankings. Even Paddy Pimblett gave him a brain-rattling wallop in the first round of their UFC 296 fight.
For now it’s unclear whether the UFC will continue to put Ferguson back in the Octagon. Dana White has said a loss to Pimblett should be curtains for Ferguson, but we’ve seen other fighters squeeze one or two more fights out of UFC matchmakers following that sort of proclamation. Unfortunately for “T-Ferg” and his fans, those fights rarely get easier.
Usually you just start to see up-and-comers make their names off aging legends. Is that really how we want to see Tony Ferguson go out?
This story originally appeared on MMA Mania
