Tony Ferguson is pretty good at this MMA thing.
Going into his headlining bout against Rafael Dos Anjos at UFC Fight Night 98, he sits at 21-3 and has won eight straight bouts, many against notable names and many others having been won in spectacular, exciting fashion.
It’s nothing to see Ferguson come flying out of his corner with tumbling, rolling, spinning offense that keeps his man off-balance for as long as it takes for Ferguson to finish him. When he’s not throwing strikes that most guys haven’t even heard of, he’s chasing flashy, low-percentage submissions he somehow finishes to an alarmingly high percentage.
He had the bump of winning The Ultimate Fighter Season 13 back when people still watched.
He talks trash.
He gets results.
He’s everything you’d think the UFC would want on paper, without a loss since 2009 and only now entering his athletic prime.
So why does it feel like none of it matters? Why does it feel like Ferguson is still light-years away from his chance to be crowned champion?
Because in this timeline, his merits don’t hold the weight they might have in another. In another, Tony Ferguson could have been king. As it stands, he’s an athlete in limbo thanks to the general flux surrounding the ongoing title race in his weight class and of those around him.
Much of that is due to Conor McGregor and the sheer force of his nature, where the Irishman is holding up the featherweight division in the name of chasing a lightweight title—a right he’s earned by being the biggest draw the sport has ever known in both his charisma and his in-cage results.
Behind McGregor is Nate Diaz, who has become the second-biggest name in the game thanks to his 2016 odyssey with McGregor. People have long loved Diaz, but it’s only now that he’s begun to make the bank he’s deserved. With that star power and the associated cash infusion it’s brought comes the reality that he’ll only ever be a few tweets and a saucy interview away from jumping the queue and getting a title shot independent of merit, much to Ferguson’s dismay.
There’s also Khabib Nurmagomedov, who has never lost a cage fight and never much looked like he’s even challenged by the pursuit. People seem to enjoy him because he makes grappling exciting—even if you don’t understand what he’s doing entirely, you can see he’s far better at it than anyone else, and that’s pretty unique. He also trains with a literal bear sometimes, which is pretty unique too.
When you’re looking at that list, it’s not hard to see how Ferguson became kind of forgotten as a contender. People like the idea of him getting a crack at a title, but most don’t love it enough to put him ahead of those three guys. Even those who do are drowned out by the sheer size and vociferousness of the fanbases of the competitors noted.
It’s a strange time in MMA. The new owners of the biggest game in town are more interested in big names and big fights than those who came before them, and it’s almost as though the folks who aren’t already a big name or primed for a big fight are going to have to work twice as hard to get themselves into that conversation.
Ferguson is a perfect example of that fact. He’s everything you’d think the UFC would be looking to put a belt on, but he’s probably a year away from even getting a chance at one, and he might need to win two more fights in that time to do it.
He might have been king at some other time. There’s no question about it, though, for reasons far beyond his own control that time isn’t right now.
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