Tony Ferguson’s fall from grace continued at UFC Abu Dhabi this past weekend (Aug. 3, 2024).
The former UFC interim Lightweight champion made a return to the Welterweight division for a clash with his fellow season winner of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF), Michael Chiesa. Unfortunately for Ferguson, it once again was not “Tony Time,” as Chiesa submitted him in the first round with a rear-naked choke (watch highlights).
Ferguson, 40, has been implored by the mixed martial arts (MMA) community to hang up his gloves (both of them) on multiple occasions throughout his eight-fight losing skid. After this latest loss, a fellow veteran, Matt Brown, has chimed in with some perspective.
“Look, when you lose eight in a row, it doesn’t matter where you’re at in your career — that’s pretty much okay, you should probably call it quits,” Brown told MMA Fighting. “Something isn’t right. Whatever it is. If you lost your first eight or you lost your last eight.
“The problem is he had so many wins, he was interim champion, on like a 12-fight winning streak back in the day. So he’s like a cocaine addict trying to reach that high again. When you get eight [losses], it doesn’t matter. If he had lost eight fights in a row at the beginning of his career, his first eight fights, he would have quit most likely. He would have been like, ‘Well, this definitely isn’t the sport for me, I lost eight fights in a row.’ But because he’s already had that high, he’s thinking I can get back to that.”
Brown, 43, unceremoniously called it a career when taking to social media this past May 2024. “The Immortal” announcement came after a previous tease and hiatus from the sport that he was done in 2018. Ultimately, he returned to go 3-3 before a concrete retirement (24-19).
The struggle to retire will be perpetually prevalent for combat sports athletes and Brown explained how the times simply change and that high won’t always be there.
“It’s like cocaine. It really is,” Brown said. “That’s what walking into an octagon and beating another man’s ass [feels like], especially the way Tony did where he just f*cking ripped people’s souls out of their bodies. That is a high you cannot get anywhere else, in any other way.
“But you can’t chase that,” he concluded. “You’ve got to accept that was the season of your life, and it’s time to move onto a new season.”