In fact less than 48 hours away from the event, the former interim UFC lightweight champion is still working out, shadow boxing and feeling like he’s about to make the walk to the octagon on Saturday in Abu Dhabi.
Unfortunately, a proposed fight between Ferguson and Dustin Poirier fell apart in the weeks leading up to the event. Poirier couldn’t come to terms on a deal with the UFC and Ferguson stood in solidarity with him after the promotion attempted to book him in a different matchup against former Bellator champion Michael Chandler.
In the aftermath of that fight falling apart, Poirier decided to move onto a potential matchup against former two-division UFC champion Conor McGregor in January while Ferguson is still awaiting word on an opponent.
“I’m supposed to fight this weekend,” Ferguson told MMA Fighting on Thursday. “Right now, I’ve even got my hoodie on. I’m supposed to be weighing in today or weigh-in this morning. Your body doesn’t know when you lost a fight.
“So technically we were getting ready for this fight outside of the things from the Dustin Poirier saga I call it. With him taking Conor’s money and his thing for the fight. He doesn’t want to fight me. That’s why I wanted the fight because in the rankings that’s what it is. Conor’s inactive. He’s been inactive for a very long time.”
Ferguson previously ripped Poirier while calling him a “sell out” for moving onto the fight with McGregor rather than sticking around to face him instead.
Of course, “El Cucuy” has a long history shared with McGregor as well — a fighter he routinely called “McNuggets” — as he sought him out as an opponent while in the midst of a 12-fight win streak.
Now that it appears McGregor and Poirier will meet in a rematch in early 2021, Ferguson took aim at both of them as he remains on the sideline without an opponent.
“They’re both b*tches,” Ferguson said. “They want to play their f**king grab ass game and go play boxing. We don’t play MMA. This is completely different. You guys don’t want to play this kind of ball league.
“You want to take Conor’s f**king bribe money to go an open up your academy while you should be saving your money, paying it, donating your time and all this other stuff. You should have had your academy already. You’ve been fighting for years. That’s some bullsh*t excuse to not want to fight.”
While he would have happily taken the Poirier fight, Ferguson’s ultimately goal in a perfect world would be drawing the winner of the UFC 254 main event this weekend between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Justin Gaethje.
Ferguson fell to Gaethje by fifth-round TKO in May, which brought his long win streak to an end, and he’s been previously matched up against Nurmagomedov on five different occasions only to see the fights fall apart every single time.
Earlier this week, Nurmagomedov seemed to dismiss Ferguson as a future opponent despite the rivalry between them that was never actually settled in the cage. That obviously didn’t sit well with Ferguson, who actually blames Nurmagomedov’s manager Ali Abdelaziz for throwing cold water on the fight.
“Ali doesn’t want to see that sh*t. He’s too busy playing f**king god in the bullsh*t,” Ferguson said. “Talking sh*t to fighters and trying to be like that. The last time I talked to that b*tch he f**king touched my leg while we were all sitting down and I’m like b*tch I don’t know you like that. Don’t you ever touch me like that again. He wants to talk sh*t on Twitter, he’s one of those guys. But when I see him, same thing that Kevin Lee did, f**king rats. Kevin Lee’s chill though.
“Khabib owes me $200K already. Ali Abdelaziz offered me $200K. It’s not from him. It’s from Khabib and 20 push-ups for making the f**king homeless dude do push-ups and making fun of him. I haven’t forgot that sh*t.”
With Nurmagomedov and Gaethje tied up this weekend and all signs pointing towards McGregor and Poirier in January, Ferguson is mostly concerned with just competing right now.
He teased a potential grappling match against former UFC champion Georges St-Pierre in Chael Sonnen’s Submission Underground promotion and he’s even open to a wrestling match against Olympic gold medalist Jordan Burroughs if that’s a possibility.
“Let’s go or GSP or Jordan Burroughs. I hear he’s free in December,” Ferguson said. “I’m down to compete. Submission Underground, submissions is good but I’m down to compete in wrestling, too. I just want to be active. Even baseball, spring training is coming up.”
As much fun as Ferguson might have grappling St-Pierre or trading takedowns with Burroughs, fighting remains his primary focus.
Now it’s just up to the UFC to find him an opponent and strike the right deal to get him back in the octagon again.
“I make sh*t happen for this company,” Ferguson said. “When sh*t needs to be done and nobody else is f**king around. You’ve got Conor running with his f**king tail between his legs and you’ve got Khabib doing the same sh*t looking for candy. Who’s there? Who are they going to count on? A f**king beaner Mexican from Michigan with the last name Ferguson that’s better than f**king anybody at sports because I got hated on and I used all that energy to f**king make a positive. So if people want to bag on that sh*t and they want to say all this sh*t, they don’t know the background.
“Being real I’m just wanting to kick some ass and chew some bubble gum.”
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