Tony Ferguson wants Daniel Cormier and the rest of the world to know that he isn’t going anywhere.
Tony Ferguson has clapped back at Daniel Cormier after ‘DC’ suggested that ‘El Cucuy’ lacks the self-awareness to retire following his submission loss to Nate Diaz at UFC 279.
Cormier, the former UFC light heavyweight and heavyweight champion, claimed that 38-year-old Ferguson is a shell of his former self and that The Ultimate Fighter 13 winner has been on the decline since his UFC 249 TKO loss to Justin Gaethje.
Ferguson, a UFC veteran of twenty-one fights, was understandably triggered by Cormier’s comments and fired back at the former UFC fighter turned MMA analyst during a recent interview with ESPN’s Brett Okamoto.
Despite losing his five in a row, Ferguson maintains that he is still ‘the f-cking champ’ and will retire on his own terms when he sees fit.
“When I feel like I’m ready to retire, I will retire. But right now it’s a little bit different, a little bit more interesting,” Ferguson said (h/t BJPenn.com). “DC and all these commentators that just keep repeating the same s**t in the past couple of years, because that’s what they want me to do. They want the public eye to see me like that and they want to see me as a quitter and so on and so forth. I never cheated to get on the scales to retain my championship like DC, hashtag ‘towel gate,’ these guys grabbing the towel, trying to lift some pounds off the scale. The UFC (was) right there, they went with it. It’s like an inside job.”
“This guy wants to call it out, I’m going to call you right back out. You don’t have to be an asshole to the people who actually work hard,” he continued. “There’s a lot of up-and-coming fighters that see that sh*t and they’re going to try and go with the clique and that’s it. So don’t start that sh*t. I’ve literally given my shirt off my back to the fans, and same thing with the UFC, and I’ll still take my shirt off to go inside that f*****g Octagon and show that I’m the f*cking man. I’m still the f*cking champ.”
Ferguson, the former interim lightweight champ, hasn’t won a fight since 2019 when he defeated Donald Cerrone via TKO (doctor stoppage) at UFC 238. He is currently #15 in the UFC lightweight rankings.