Tony Ferguson: 'When Khabib left, a little part of me left with that'

08/10/2023 15:00

Tony Ferguson and Khabib Nurmagomedov will forever be inextricably linked.

The former rivals were the two most dominant lightweights of their era. In their heydays, both men racked up record-breaking 12-fight win streaks in the UFC that still stand today as the benchmarks for success in the 155-pound division, however their rivalry has also gone down as one of the most cursed of all-time. Ferguson and Nurmagomedov were infamously booked to fight one another in five separate bouts from 2015-20, yet each attempt was inevitably foiled by injuries, weight cuts gone awry, or other luckless circumstances.

Nurmagomedov retired from MMA in 2020 following an undefeated run as UFC lightweight champion, however Ferguson has persevered on. He's lost six consecutive fights since 2020 and hopes to snap out of that slump when he faces Paddy Pimblett at UFC 296.

But for Ferguson, it's never felt the same since the day Nurmagomedov walked away.

"I've never really sat there and thought about the wins, losses, or the trophies, or anything like that. I've always just been compete, compete, compete, compete," Ferguson said in a revealing conversation on The MMA Hour. "And I know when Khabib left, a little part of me left with that. It kind of sucked a little bit, because we've always had that, I won't say negative energy, but that hype that was built around that. And then when that disappeared and the pandemic hit, and [my] f****** team left, and then just a whole bunch — there was nothing else left for me, kind of, except what I told myself was I wanted to compete.

"I wanted to compete enough so that I would maybe, possibly, win or lose, Khabib would come back."

As fate would have it, Ferguson nearly got his wish earlier this year.

He said the UFC explored filming a season of The Ultimate Fighter that'd pit him against Nurmagomedov as coaches. Unfortunately, however, the plan never came together and the promotion pivoted to Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler for its recent TUF 31 season.

"We were verbally agreed to have coached," Ferguson said. "And a couple of months back, I think it was like in November, a couple months passed and he didn't even go corner [Islam] Makhachev, which is one thing. And so he had a lot of different things going on in his life, where he had to kind of second-guess himself and not want to come back. So that was like another bummer. It was like, f***, OK, really?

"So I had to find myself, and kind of, like I said, let go over a couple of things, because anger is not one thing you want to keep holding on to, and then that frustration that comes with it, when you don't have that ability to take care of business or to make that amends. I still don't want to shake the f*****'s hand. He's still fat in my book, and Conor's still a f****** little b**** too. But at the end of the day, there's another day — the next day."

Ferguson's decision to let go of the anger and frustration he's felt over the past few years has been part of the mental shift he says he's experienced ahead of UFC 296. He's back with his old team and said he's in a more confident mental state than he's been in years.

And while he's solely focused on Pimblett, the long-ago TUF 13 winner still wouldn't mind returning to his old stomping grounds at some point, even if it's without Nurmagomedov.

"You know what, Tiramisu Tuesdays are always going to exist, like I said, and Mondays are McNugget Mondays. It's just always going to exist," Ferguson said.

"[But] I don't give a f*** anymore. What I want to do is I do want to coach a season. I really do. I'm a great coach. I know I'm a great coach, because I've had great coaching."