Sometimes, fighters have to be saved from themselves.
When it comes to Tony Ferguson, that’s where we are, and UFC President Dana White might need to make the tough decision to end El Cucuy’s career.
Ferguson was recently on a video with former UFC flyweight champion and ONE Championship kingpin Demetrious Johnson. In the video, Ferguson said that he will call White to let him know when he’s ready to fight again.
He says, “I’m too old to retire.” The conversation begins at the 2:00 mark of the video below.
As that news was read across the world, sensible MMA fans had to collectively groan.
Ferguson has lost a UFC record eight fights in a row and several of the losses have come by devastating finish.
White has said he believes Ferguson should retire, but the defiant UFC legend has refused to pull the plug on his career.
There was a time when Ferguson was one of the best fighters in the world. He had a 12-fight win streak that lasted from 2013-19. During that streak, Ferguson captured the interim lightweight title and was legitimately one of the toughest fights anyone could draw.
We’re far from that now, as Ferguson’s time as a competitive fighter seems over. A fellow legend not as far down the road as Ferguson, Charles Oliveira, recently weighed in on El Cucuy’s situation.
Oliveira’s suggestion is for the UFC to match Ferguson with other older fighters in a similar situation in their careers. That’s a better option than carrying on as if the year is 2017 and not 2024, but there are challenges with that concept, too.
What fighter on the roster would be considered on Ferguson’s level at this point in his career? Ferguson’s last loss to Michael Chiesa seemed like a matchup from that playbook.
Chiesa has never been considered a big striker, so he wasn’t going to punish Ferguson like Michael Chandler, or others did on this hellacious losing streak.
Still, Chiesa finished Ferguson and vacated the Octagon to allow Ferguson to give the retirement speech we all knew he should give. It didn’t come.
Perhaps fans could be motivated to see Ferguson face Nick Diaz, Cub Swanson, Joe Lauzon or Darren Elkins. But the pool of fighters that would come close to sensible matchups is shallow.
At this point, we’re hearing cries from people throughout the MMA community to stop Ferguson from continuing his career.
Popular MMA X personality Josie Aldo delivered this post. It’s blunt and potentially tough for some Ferguson fans to hear, but at the end of the day, can anyone sensibly argue with the sentiment?
The best thing for White and the UFC to do is handle Ferguson similarly to how they handled BJ Penn. After suffering a losing streak similar to the one Ferguson is mired in, a video surfaced of Penn being knocked out cold in a street fight with a pedestrian.
The UFC released Penn, and White said: “He won’t fight again, that’s it,” White told ESPN. “That’s a wrap. It’s not even that this was the last straw. I didn’t love him continuing to fight anyway, but with the relationship that he and I have — he gets me on the phone, begging me for another fight. It’s hard to turn him down. After what I saw in that video, BJ needs to, you know, he needs to focus on his personal life before he thinks about fighting.”
While it took seeing Penn knocked out in a street fight for White to release the Hawaiian legend, it would be best if Ferguson’s recent Octagon struggles and delusional pride were enough evidence that it’s time to pull the plug on a Hall-of-Fame career.
If Ferguson chooses to find another promotion that’ll give him a chance to fight, it’ll be a shame. The potential negative outcomes of this decision cannot be ignored.
However, the UFC needs to do what’s best, Ferguson, even if he’s unable to make the right decision for himself.
