UFC fan favorite Tony Ferguson teases a move to 170.
Tony Ferguson is just days removed from his meme-worthy knockout loss to Michael Chandler at UFC 274, but ‘El Cucuy’ is already thinking about his next fight.
Ferguson, who used to compete at welterweight during his 2011 stint on The Ultimate Fighter 13, revealed in a recent interview with MMA Junkie’s Mike Bohn that he is considering moving back up to 170 following his most recent defeat to Chandler which marked his fourth-straight.
In Ferguson’s own words: ‘I knocked everybody out up there at 170.’
“I wouldn’t mind going back up to 170,” Ferguson, 38, said (h/t Low Kick MMA). “I knocked everybody out up there at 170. This cut to 155 – it’s not too hard, but I lose a lot of muscle mass, man. I f*cking hate being skinny like that, I look like a little b*tch, I don’t f*cking like that.”
“I work my ass off to put on muscle and make sure that I eat right, and I do that – and my pops always told me, ‘Anthony, wrestle at your own bodyweight.’ And I haven’t done that for a while. What I did for the last year and a half was, I just stopped everything and I just paid attention to everything other people were doing…”
Ferguson won Season 13 of The Ultimate Fighter as a welterweight but returned to the lightweight division after winning the tournament, racking up almost thirteen straight victories with wins over the likes of Edson Barboza, Rafael dos Anjos, and Anthony Pettis.
Ferguson isn’t sure when he’ll be ready to fight again but, whenever the UFC calls, he’ll be available.
“When I’m ready to fight I will let the UFC know, and I guarantee you they’ll let me know, too, ‘Hey, this is who we have.’” he said. “I was ready for (Islam) Makhachev in Abu Dhabi if some things would’ve been a little bit different. But I try to take these opportunities and present them so I’m there for the company. They know I’m a company man, and that’s why they said I’m not going anywhere.”
Following his loss to Chandler, Ferguson dropped three places to #10 in the UFC lightweight rankings.