TONY FERGUSON PLANS TO ONE-UP MCGREGOR
A week ahead of when Conor McGregor plans on making history by being the first UFC fighter to hold two championships at the same time, Tony Ferguson made known his plans to one up him.
In an interview with MMAJunkie following his unanimous decision win over Rafael dos Anjos Saturday night, Ferguson said that he would like to win titles in three weight classes. “There are two other divisions I would love to be able to go into,” he said. “I made 153 pounds at the weigh-ins. I weighed in with pants on. I can go down to 145. I can kick everyone’s butt there. I can bump back up to 155, knock everybody out and finish them. And you’re damn sure I can go to 170 and do the same thing. I want to be a multi-division champ.”
While he didn’t go as far to say he would like to hold all three titles simultaneously, he does plan on achieving this goal the old-fashioned way. “I’m not gonna talk my way to get there. I’m gonna earn it every single step of the way, like I said from the Ultimate Fighter house.”
He’s certainly been impressive as of late, but Ferguson has set the bar very high for himself in vying for championships in arguably the UFC’s three toughest divisions.
Hiscoe’s Analysis: Outside of his Ultimate Fighter run, Ferguson’s entire UFC career has been in the Lightweight Division, but it’s been an impressive one at that. His lone loss in UFC is to Michael Johnson, who may be beginning a surge of his own and will have to be considered a top contender if he gets past Khabib Nurmagomedov this weekend. Unfortunately for Ferguson, he’s not a big enough name to be able to leapfrog other competitors in the equally deep 145 and 170 pound divisions to meet this goal. He should focus on getting the shot at 155 first as there is no guarantee he is next in line. He will be best served to keep his name out there by talking about potential fights with Eddie Alvarez or Conor McGregor as he should see by now, that even with nine straight wins, in-cage merit alone isn’t enough to get someone one UFC title, let alone three.
MONDAY NOTEBOOK ITEMS…
-MMAJunkie has acquired some UFC investor documents that show research done by outside firms that identified 260 million UFC fans worldwide in 2015. Eight-five percent of these fans lived outside the United States, but only accounted for 13p percent of UFC’s revenue, which can explain UFC’s heavy push to run shows in international markets in recent years, such as Mexico City on Saturday night.
–TMZSports.com caught up with Joe Rogan on LAX and he expressed concern that Ronda Rousey may not perform her best if she is already considering her options after fighting. “It’s exciting to see her to come back if she wants to come back,” he said. “But whenever someone starts saying a couple more fights and then I’ll go into movies, I go, ‘Man, I don’t like hearing that.’ ‘Cause when you have one foot out the door, you should probably put both feet out the door.” He also said that he feels Rousey and Cris Cyborg are in different weight classes but that he would watch if the fight were to happen.
NOW CHECK OUT YESTERDAY’S UPDATE: SUNDAY NEWS DIGEST 11/6: UFC Fight Night bonuses including Ferguson vs. Dos Anjos main event, UFC Super Bowl weekend, Tate predicts Rousey retirement
(MMATorch’s Daily News Digest features the top story of the day with added analysis, plus smaller tidbits in the News Notes section. Mike Hiscoe, who writes the News Digest Sundays through Thursdays, has a background in film criticism and previously wrote for the DVD Town and Movie Metropolis websites. His passion for Mixed Martial Arts goes back to 2005, but it was in the promotion for UFC 60: Hughes vs. Gracie that he really got hooked.”This is my house, I build it,” is still among the all-time great UFC promos. You can follow Mike on social media under the tag @mikehiscoe. He now provides his experienced writing and perspective on live MMA events for MMATorch.)
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