“Everybody’s acting like I’ve denied Tony his shot at the title. It’s just that he’s had a bad string of luck and things haven’t gone his way.”
UFC president Dana White has recently come under fire by the MMA community for his indecisiveness regarding Tony Ferguson and the UFC lightweight title picture.
On a whopping 12-fight win streak, Ferguson is expected to challenge the winner of Khabib Nurmagomedov and Dustin Poirier for the official UFC lightweight title, but White is hesitant to declare ‘El Cucuy’ the next No. 1 contender.
White denies any unfair treatment towards Ferguson but still won’t acknowledge that the former interim champ is fully deserving of the next title shot.
“When did I say that this guy doesn’t deserve anything? I mean if you do your homework on the Tony Ferguson thing, how many times have Tony Ferguson and Khabib [Nurmagomedov] been lined up to fight? It didn’t work out,” White said during an Instagram Live session on Tuesday, per MMA Fighting’s Damon Martin. “He was the interim champion, blew his knee out, he had to have ACL surgery. He was out. We just offered him the fight with [Dustin] Poirier to fight Khabib next, he turned the fight down. Then he came back a few weeks later and was ready to fight again.
“Everybody’s acting like I’ve denied Tony his shot at the title. It’s just that he’s had a bad string of luck and things haven’t gone his way.
“He just looked phenomenal in the fight [against Donald Cerrone]. I just posted something the other day about his last seven opponents. The guy’s a stud and he’s in a good place right now mentally and physically and we’ll see how this thing plays out in September and then we’ll go from there.”
“But everybody’s terrorizing me like I’m not giving him what he deserves. If you’re a fan of the sport, you saw how this whole thing played out. That’s how we got where we are now.”
Ferguson, who trains under renowned Brazilian Jiu Jitsu coach Eddie Bravo, will be keeping a close eye on the upcoming title unification bout between Nurmagomedov and Poirier at UFC 242. The highly anticipated PPV takes place on Sept. 7 at du Arena in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.