Tony Ferguson believes he’ll finally get his chance to fight Khabib Nurmagomedov. With “El Cucuy” set to face Li Jingliang at UFC 279 this weekend, he revealed that the UFC is hoping to secure him and Khabib as coaches for the next season of The Ultimate Fighter. Ferguson, at the UFC 279 pre-fight media day, claimed that Khabib’s father – whose death triggered Khabib’s retirement – wanted to make Ferguson vs Nurmagomedov happen.
“I am the one to get him out of retirement. That dude’s not retired. When it comes down to it, when you lose somebody, you have to take some time off, you have to think and you have to do whatever you have to do but his father had said the fight to make was myself and Khabib. Before he passed away, he did say that and Khabib has that in his mindset.”
Tony Ferguson Promises To Get “Scared” Khabib Out of Retirement: “we’re just waiting for Khabib’s fat ass.”
The death of Khabib’s father, who was also his coach, was a major factor in influencing the Russian star to retire. Khabib left the UFC with an unblemished 29-0 record, retiring as UFC lightweight champion.
A fight between Khabib and Tony Ferguson was something of a white whale for the UFC, with the pair booked to fight a grand total of four times, with each bout cancelled. Their last scheduled bout was for 2020, and the COVID-19 pandemic that eventually claimed Khabib’s father intervened to prevent it from occurring.
Tony Ferguson claims that the UFC has given the “greenlight” for him to coach a team on The Ultimate Fighter, the show that catapulted him to UFC stardom. They’re just “waiting for Khabib’s fat ass”.
“We got the greenlight. We’re waiting on Khabib’s fat ass. I actually called him Khabib. Did you guys hear that s***? We’re waiting on ‘Fathead’s fat ass and I’m going to be real with you. We got the greenlight from the brass, went and talked to them.
We got the greenlight from his coach. We got the greenlight from his agent. His agent comes up and tries to hug me, he was all in pink, f****** looked like Pinky from Friday. It was funny as f***. You can spot him anywhere. He comes up and he’s like ‘let’s do this.’
In reality, we’re just waiting for Khabib’s fat ass. He’s the one that’s scared. Whether it’s a fight or not, we’ll go and coach and I’m sure we’ll make it entertaining.
He’ll break before the fighters around that team and I’ve still got some good material that I haven’t used yet so I’m just waiting for that thing.” Do you believe we’ll finally get to see Khabib vs Tony? Let us know in the comments.
