Tony Ferguson Bashes UFC For Stripping Interim Title Due To ‘Freak Injury’

Shortly after UFC president Dana White broke the news that Tony Ferguson was out of his UFC 223 main event versus Khabib Nurmagomedov and would be replaced by Max Holloway last night, White also clarified that “El Cucuy” would lose his interim lightweight championship without fighting.

Ferguson is not surprisingly unhappy with that call after suffering a torn LCL in a strange fall while doing some UFC-obligated media promotion last weekend.

Today (Mon., April 2, 2018) “El Cucuy” spoke up with his position on The MMA Hour, revealing that he was hurt by the UFC after finding out he would be stripped of his title while watching White on ESPN.

He doesn’t believe his title will go away, and he doesn’t think it should considering he hurt himself while doing UFC-mandated media obligations:

“I haven’t spoken with the UFC yet about what’s next,” Ferguson said on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour. “So when I saw what was in the [ESPN] interview, it shocked me, man, it hurt me even more. It was something I couldn’t control with this injury. This all started snowballing this weekend, man. Of all weekends. The UFC hasn’t said anything to me about my title going away, and I don’t think it will go away.

“You shouldn’t strip a champion due to a freak injury that happened during a UFC-obligated media event,” Ferguson said.

The otherwise surging lightweight then detailed the timeline of events, claiming that he tripped over a large cable in a dark production room on the FOX Sports set as he went to say hello to a crew member. He worked out with it but felt more pain, and then his knee got progressively worse to the point he knew he wouldn’t be able to fight on Saturday night:

“I tweeted this happened on Friday, but it actually happened on Thursday when I was doing my media obligations for UFC. I was walking to say [hello] to a FOX crew member and I walked and I slipped on one of those big black thick cords on the production studio. It was dark, hard to see and I wasn’t wearing my shades, I actually had my prescription sunglasses on. That was when I was about to do my interview on ‘The Herd’ with Kristin.

“It was just a matter of, I slipped, man,” Ferguson said. “I heard it pop. Once we got back to the car after FOX interviewed us, I turned to my wife to tell her what happened, and she was concerned. I had a couple of my team members, and UFC staff with me. Afterwards I went home and did a pool workout and I felt tension and danger in my workout. I woke up on Friday with some pain and I still tried to push through it. You guys know me, I’m tough. I tried to train later that evening after taking a day of rest but my knee locked up.

“I woke up Saturday with even more pain, but I tried to push through it and train again,” Ferguson said. “But it locked up on me, my knee was giving out a few times, and slowly it dawned on me, I knew something was f*cked up and more serious.”

Admitting that he needed a medical opinion, Ferguson got an MRI and saw the bad news, and even though he wanted to have the doctors give him something to help fight through the pain, that ultimately just wasn’t an option. He does, however, want to explore his options and return in less than a year:

“I’m not a doctor,” Ferguson said. “But when I saw my MRI image, dude, I don’t know about you, but I was like it looked like a flag with my ligament, it was hanging on the side of the pole. I wanted them to shoot me with some sort of numbing shot or whatever they put, but they said it was likely it would blow up my whole entire knee.

“I have a ruptured LCL ligament, is what they told me.

“According to the doctor, it’s off the fibula bone. Athletes with LCL sprains can usually heal in a few weeks if they stay off it. I got one doc who says I need surgery, I got one who says I have other options so they are going to send me to a specialist to see what I need to do. So I am fighting to be back in less than a year.”

So with that recovery timeline now staring him down, Ferguson cited the situation last year where Robert Whittaker fought and defeated Yoel Romero for the interim belt while then-champ Michael Bisping was slated to fight Georges St-Pierre that November.

With that recent scenario a similar occurrence as his current one, he simply wants the UFC to do the right thing and allow him to keep his belt:

“I mean seriously, there is a precedent for having a fight for a “real” title and keeping an “interim” title intact,” Ferguson said. “They just did that with Robert Whittaker last year.

“I just hope they do the right thing.”

As the storied 155-pound division falls into even more utter chaos, that may not be the case for ‘El Cucuy.’