Tony Ferguson has responded to Conor McGregor criticizing him for change in management.
Back in 2016, tensions between Tony Ferguson, or any top lightweight for that matter were high with Conor McGregor. ‘The Notorious’ was on his way to achieving unparalleled stardom after becoming the first double champ in the UFC. The two had traded verbal jabs at each other with Ferguson calling out the Irishman in a post-fight octagon interview.
While their rivalry appeared to be related to competition, there may be more to it than meets the eye. Ahead of his fight against Michael Chandler at UFC 274, Tony Ferguson let all hell loose as he went in on the UFC and the president Dana White. McGregor took to Twitter to pin the blame on ‘El Cucuy’ for “burning bridges”.
Tony Ferguson details Paradigm & Conor McGregor
In an interview with Submission Radio following UFC 274, Tony Ferguson hit back at Conor McGregor and expanded on what’s going on between the two behind the scenes.
Ferguson talks about the unethical business practices done by Paradigm, which the Irish superstar is a part-owner. He revealed that UFC president Dana White also believed that he was unfairly treated.
“Well, I’m going to be real. There was a lot of underscored things that were going on between the UFC and Paradigm. They obviously had like a lot of insider information that they were sharing between each other. Even Dana said they f**ked me over, and, we’re going to be going through some legal things, which is kind of crazy, and I can’t talk too much about it, but there’s a Miller-Ayala act, which says that an agent, an acting agent is not supposed to compete in the same sport as the person that you’re representing.”
He believes he was lied to and has some legal course of action up his sleeve.
“And I would ask my management all the time if he [Conor McGregor] was an owner of the company, and they kept straight out lying to me every single time. They lied to me a lot. And I’m not trying to do anything else besides tell the truth on my part. But I would ask it, and it would bug the sh*t out of me. Cause I kind of knew that that was just like, what the f**k? Everybody has told me that he [Conor McGregor] is [part owner of Paradigm Sports Management], but he isn’t.”
Ferguson believes McGregor didn’t fight for the belt due to his interests in the management company which would’ve made it illegal for him to do so.
“But there was a reason why he didn’t fight for the belt. Cause one, it would have probably been illegal. I want to be real. Cause one, he probably wasn’t supposed to be in the same sport as me or in the same weight class. So, there’s a lot of things that are going to go on, and there’s going to be some people called into court and just, I’m going to be real, there’s a lot of things going on.
“So when he keeps talking, he keeps doing that… I had management come in to my academy, take pictures of things, or just realize, hey, where did you get this? Where did you get this? And I would see the same equipment over at his spot. And then I remember in one of the camps that hey, one of my neighbors comes up and says ‘hey, did you know Conor McGregor’s on the other side? He’s by you’.”
Ferguson bashed McGregor for being “mentally weak”.
“And I was like what? What the f**k? The dude would come over, like, maybe not even like a couple buildings away, and he had opened up his spot over there. And a lot of things that he does is just to taunt people. And it just has to say something about his character, about like, why? It’s just mentally weak. Like you wanna, it’s like when you use a game genie in Nintendo and a video game, and you’re able to win fast and be able to do other stuff, you don’t really have fun anymore.”
Closing his statements out with a healthy bit of speculation, Ferguson wondered if ‘Mystic Mac’ was simply imitating him for improvement.
“You kind of try to like figure out and you just try to enjoy everybody else’s stuff. The dude was riding his bike on my running trail. Like, I’m not bullsh***ing. It was the most ridiculous stuff. And he was even kicking the pole and stuff. Maybe he didn’t do it on purpose. Maybe he was just like flattered and he was just like, I’m gonna try this, I’m gonna try this and try this and do this. It worked for him, it’s going to work for me. A lot of people do that.”