Despite his record-tying streak of Octagon futility, Tony
Ferguson has no intention of hanging up his gloves.
Ferguson (25-10) suffered a unanimous decision defeat at the hands
of Paddy
Pimblett on Saturday at
UFC 296. It was his seventh straight loss in the
Ultimate Fighting Championship, tying B.J. Penn for the
longest such streak in the promotion’s history.
In spite of that streak, which includes several lopsided beatdowns
and one chilling knockout via front kick, and despite UFC CEO
expressing his wish that Ferguson would retire, a defiant “El
Cucuy” this week expressed his disinclination to call it quits. The
39-year-old Californian this week wrote an Instagram post that read in part, “Not
retiring casuals.”
Prior to his current skid, Ferguson (25-10) was riding the longest
winning streak at lightweight and was considered the main threat to
former champ Khabib
Nurmagomedov back in 2019. However, despite multiple attempts
the matchup always fell through. Eventually, Ferguson found himself
pitted in an interim title clash against Justin
Gaethje at UFC 249 that would change things forever. Gaethje
took away Ferguson’s air of invincibility with a brutal beatdown
leading to a fifth-round technical knockout that Nurmagomedov
predicted would change “El Cucuy” forever. It appears “The Eagle”
was right, considering Ferguson has since dropped six more
straight. While Ferguson was fighting elite opponents like Charles
Oliveira, Beneil
Dariush and Michael
Chandler at the beginning of this slump, he has been unable to
bounce back even against lower-ranked opponents Nate Diaz,
Bobby
Green and Pimblett.