Tony Ferguson revealed that his recent loss to ‘King’ Bobby Green came after the former interim lightweight champ attempted to hit a brand new move on his opponent.
UFC 291 saw ‘El Cucuy’ suffer his sixth-straight loss inside the Octagon, dropping a third-round submission to Bobby Green in the waning seconds of their scrap in Salt Lake City. Speaking with ESPN’s Brett Okamoto, Tony Ferguson revealed that the loss came only after he had attempted to bust out a new move that ended up backfiring on him.
“I put myself underneath him when I shouldn’t have, didn’t take his ground and pound serious when I was doing it. I was hitting a new move, it wasn’t an iminari. Everybody’s like ‘Oh, he’s not as fast.’ Nah, I was trying to do a different one. I call it ‘The Boogeyman’. I’ll just explain it right now, I shoot underneath the guy’s legs and then I end up taking his back from underneath the bottom position and I didn’t do that” (h/t MMA News).
Even if Tony Ferguson had survived the final seconds of the third round, he still would have left the Delta Center with another loss as the scorecards revealed he was already down on two out of three going into the final five minutes.
Tony Ferguson Claims Multiple Eye Pokes Compromised Him Against Bobby Green
‘El Cucuy’ has also blamed his latest loss on what he believes to have been an intentional eye poke from Bobby Green. Ferguson echoed similar sentiments during his conversation with Okamoto, saying:
“Before that, I kept getting poked in the eye which was kind of sh*t. I mean it f*cking hurt and the doctor kept getting in the way. I’m sitting here tryna get my composure back and I’m looking at Bobby. I’m looking at him in the face so that way I can see his breathing and the more time I took, the more composed that he started getting.
It was kind of like a lose-lose situation where it’s like okay cool but I’m not gonna take a no contest, that never even phased my mind like ‘Get the f*ck outta her doc, we got some work to do.’
Many fight fans expected Tony Ferguson to hang up his gloves following the loss to Green. Instead, ‘El Cucuy‘ will step back inside the Octagon for the promotion’s final pay-per-view of the year, UFC 296. On that night, Ferguson is scheduled for a showdown with fast-rising UK standout Paddy Pimblett, a fight that has drawn the ire of many fight fans.
If Ferguson takes another L, as many suspect he will, the ex-interim champ will tie BJ Penn’s record for the most consecutive losses in UFC history.