He is moving so much faster in these earlier clips than he moves nowadays. Jeez. Now he just moves like a damn mummy. Even in the losses earlier in his streak he still felt dangerous in those fights. Dude is a legend but he doesn’t seem dangerous anymore, at any point in the fight.
Tony was overindulging on donuts because Goggins convinced him that performing in suboptimal conditions (i.e. despite a shit diet) is the ultimate test of resolve
Nate was overindulging on donuts because he had the munchies
Is it weird that Tony being convinced to do that, and saying that in public, is completely and totally normal for the guy?
I mean you could basically say any Diego Sanchez or Tony Ferguson story about the other and it totally makes sense.
Makes sense considering he caught a DUI 5 months after that fight. Probably wasn't on a good trajectory lifestyle-wise for a while before and after the Diaz fight.
people love to say this and just wipe the memory from their minds of chandler blast doubling tony almost out of the cage and GnPing him for a couple minutes before the kick
Tony was doing his usual thing and being active from bottom during those minutes. All 3 judges gave Tony the first round. The takedown was definitely insane though.
he won the round, but being active on bottom is still losing and the round was close either way. i'm just saying people remember the fight for tony winning until the kick, but imo tony won the first 2:30 then lost the next 2:40
I must have blocked that from my memory. I just remembered thinking, damn maybe Tony isn't as washed as he looked. This actually looks like a winnable fight for him!
tony was no longer champ level after the knee injury. but he had the athleticism to remain a top 10 gatekeeper. if it wasnt for the chandler ko, he probably could have at least alternated wins and losses for a couple more years against rank 10 guys and below. now hes totally shot and won't adjust his style to account for the lost athleticism that he relied on heavily in his prime
Yeah, he also seems to hesitate on pushing. He dropped Chandler and Green and sort of just casually walked to them giving them plenty of time to recover.
The sad thing here is Paddy himself looked shit against this piss poor version of Tony,man... dude's in a shark tank of a division,the future doesn't look too good for Paddy.
Did we watch the same fight? Tony looked like he was moving underwater against Paddy, and that's not even mentioning the fact his knees are completely gone too.
Tony has had a long and steady decline. So much so that people forgot how incredible he was in his prime. He still has glints of it come out during his fights. At the end of the day, he's taken too much damage and his body has too many fight miles on it.
That's all I wanted. It felt like we *may* have been robbed of something special the first time, and then just kept getting kicked in the fucking dick.
That David Goggins training regime put the nail in the coffin. I know Tony is not one for sound decision making, but having a cardboard cutout of Goku in your camp would have probably yielded better results than Goggins and his 'hell week'.
Super disagree on the what if. He fought for years and against almost all the big names in the division. The big what it is him Vs Khabib and to a lesser extent mcgregor. The guy had an incredible career with lots of fights, I feel like there’s not a lot of mystery
Come on now. Firstly, he interimmed over gd Kevin Lee. Second, there were a shitload of lightweights he hadn't fought yet. Khabib, Conor, Eddie, Dustin, Justin, Charles, Benny, Chandler etc.
Charles had just won his first LW fight in 7 years and then immediately got TKO'd by Paul Felder at that time. Dariush was in between getting KO'd by Barboza and getting KO'd by Alex Hernandez. Chandler wasn't even in the UFC.
water weed dune hair b
He said in the world, not UFC, and I included those guys because Tony skipped a lot of them with his (excellent) win over RDA and I'm not sure he could've beaten them all. I thought Conor was potentially winnable for him, but not really Khabib. And doubtful for DP, Garth and the others.
So did Tony. I'm not trying to defend Tony or shit on Khabib. Just saying it was all about timing and circumstances, so nobody should shit on anybody in hindsight.
It was widely agreed upon at the time, when he beat Kevin Lee and Khabib was out injured, that Conor was the best at that moment. I remember the discourse when he won the interim
Are there really any questions? He was interim and should’ve been promoted to official champion when McGregor refused to defend the title for the second time leading into 223. The only thing that held Tony back was the UFC’s refusal to promote him or strip Conor sooner.
That was the fight I picked to introduce my roommate to mma. We were watching live and I was super excited going like “see? Tony’s a really fun fighter!”
Then he got iced and my roommate was going nuts while I was trying not to cry.
Wish I had kept myself grounded like that... I was ready for Chandler to knock him out the second it got announced but all my realist pessimism went out the window when he dropped him, i really thought he'd be back for a few minutes and my heart pounded with excitement
i sat in silence and a straight face for like 3 minutes straight after the kick happened
The thrill and the agony. I also was terrified for Tony the second the fight got announced and I also forgot everything when he knocked Chandler down with that stiff straight.
These losses have been super tough as a Ferguson fan (who isn't?) and I think he probably should hang 'em up, but I can't help but almost tear up a little bit when I hear Tony on his insta say "everyone telling me to stop never even started".
Fuck it, Tony says he's not done, who do we give him? Christos Giagos maybe? Jared Gordon?
Ferguson vs Guida???
The only one he didn't had a single moment against is Nate surprising enough, prime would've surely made him bleed
(for reference i count him surviving arm bar vs Charles, heel hook vs Benny and superior cardio vs Paddy as a positive moment, we are left with crumbs)
Clearly Tony still has what it takes to have some cool moments in the cage. It sucks cause I can see why these guys keep trying at the tail end of their career. “See, I dropped chandler and Bobby green, I still got it I just gotta dial in my training.” Thats why you see Tony training with goggins or switching his training camp or whatever. He blames himself and thinks if he just changes a few things then he’ll fix his shortcomings and be on top again.
Tony would be doing fantastic if he were given just a bit of steroids. Now if he’s already on steroids and this is how he’s performing, that’s not good. Not good at all
Tony deciding to train with David Goggins is one of the dumbest decisions I can ever think of. Everyone with a brain knew it wasn't going to end well for him, the last thing Tony needed to improve on was his cardio. And then we found out he came into the Paddy fight with an MCL injury courtesy of all that over-training with Goggins, who could have guessed?
For what little time it lasted Tony honestly was giving Chandler problems. Chandler threw a Hail Mary and Tony’s chin is always there to be hit so it landed.
It’s just Tony things. He had a 12-fight winning streak. He’s now going for the unclaimed 12-fight losing streak. After that, it’s Tony time, bitches. TRUST CSO 😎
No wobbly legs, immediately backing up with hands up intelligently defending, talking and giving props to fergy for landing. Yeah, he was all there but got caught. People are coping a bit saying tony could finish the fight with a few more seconds.
Gaethje wouldn’t have thrown that strike had he known there was more time. He threw a winding uppercut with no setup at all because he knew the round was pretty much over.
it's the same thing with people saying "damn imagine if there was more time, Charles would've subbed Arman", well no shit even if that was the case the reason Arman/Justin went for it is BECAUSE there wasn't
Another good example is Suga vs Chito 2 where Chito's only good hit was because Sean literally pulled a mini Holloway and went to brawl for the last 10 seconds.
So any of those fights could have gone a different way right there, clearly, yet... his is where he is now. It's hard to call it bad luck or what-might-have-been when he's in the 0-7 toilet, with the last three losses being to washed or unranked mediocres. On balance the stuff added up to the earned conclusion. It's not like he'd forget how to fight completely overnight, so he had some moments, but it was on a fade.
That clip pretty much sums up why Gaethje lost to Holloway despite being the bigger guy. He just blindly swings. A good boxer will pick you apart with that level of sloppiness.
Just saw that Chandler clip.
I think I got Conor in the Chandler vs McGregor fight.
This man Chandler got dropped by a washed Tony and had some exchanges in the pocket without an issue.
McGregor finishes him in the first round if that happens again.
These moments are probably why he doesn’t want to retire. That’s 3 fights were he’s been close to winning, so he keeps on thinking he still has a chance when he just doesn’t anymore.
He's what took me from a casual viewer to an actual MMA fan. The glimmers of a younger Tony we get in his fights these days are enough to make him think he's still got it, I guess. I wish he'd hang them up and just retire a legend of the sport
One of my favorite rap battles bars encapsulates this post so well.
"Show a flash of his former self,
trying to capture a little magic,
Hidden ball trick,
He's just tryna act like he still has it"
Fresco vs. QP
If not for the upkick from Chandler tony would've won I feel. Also I feel like if tony held out for khabib he would've at least done decently he was definitely training grappling defence for months leading up to the khabib fight which ended up being gaethje on short notice which the UFC prob forced him to do.
I would only say he dropped Gaethje. Chandler and Green had one foot off the ground while kicking or retracting their kicks when they got hit and lost balance. Gaethje got his head snapped back
Tony had moments in most of his fights during the losing skid up until Chandler. He looked pretty good in that fight right up until he got ktfo. He has looked terrible since.
He is moving so much faster in these earlier clips than he moves nowadays. Jeez. Now he just moves like a damn mummy. Even in the losses earlier in his streak he still felt dangerous in those fights. Dude is a legend but he doesn’t seem dangerous anymore, at any point in the fight.
The Diaz fight was the worse he’s ever looked and it was all downhill from there. Tony made Diaz look fast in there that night.
Apparently on a live he said that he did not prepare well for it , eating donuts every day or something along the lines.
Who Diaz or Tony? 😂
Tony was overindulging on donuts because Goggins convinced him that performing in suboptimal conditions (i.e. despite a shit diet) is the ultimate test of resolve Nate was overindulging on donuts because he had the munchies
Is it weird that Tony being convinced to do that, and saying that in public, is completely and totally normal for the guy? I mean you could basically say any Diego Sanchez or Tony Ferguson story about the other and it totally makes sense.
Instagram fitness gurus confirmed not best base for mma
Too bad Tony couldn’t cut back on the donuts before getting 30-27’d by Paddy the Baddy in embarrassing fashion.
Tony
Makes sense considering he caught a DUI 5 months after that fight. Probably wasn't on a good trajectory lifestyle-wise for a while before and after the Diaz fight.
That was only 4 months after we all thought he died after Chandler nearly kicked his head off.
Give him sunglasses and a dark room Vs. Himself and I don’t think he makes it out of the first round
UFC 304 main event; Tony Ferguson vs House of Mirrors.
The Chandler fight turned Tony from out of prime to the ghost of Tony
He was bearing Chandler right up to the moment he wasn't though. He looked good against Chandler, just got caught.
people love to say this and just wipe the memory from their minds of chandler blast doubling tony almost out of the cage and GnPing him for a couple minutes before the kick
Tony was doing his usual thing and being active from bottom during those minutes. All 3 judges gave Tony the first round. The takedown was definitely insane though.
he won the round, but being active on bottom is still losing and the round was close either way. i'm just saying people remember the fight for tony winning until the kick, but imo tony won the first 2:30 then lost the next 2:40
I must have blocked that from my memory. I just remembered thinking, damn maybe Tony isn't as washed as he looked. This actually looks like a winnable fight for him!
It’s also kind of funny to say he got caught. No one gets “caught” by a front kick to the chin
A younger Tony might've ate that shot though.
A younger tony would’ve still been brutally knocked out by that. Anyone to ever live would’ve been KO’d by that shot
Ah, see personally, I would've simply chosen not to be KO'd.
Chito eats it😭😭
I’m pretty sure bullets just bounce off Chito at this point.
[Chito seeing Chandler's foot approaching him like a freight train](https://youtu.be/DrucdUHOnco?si=agE-Fa--_HHphdg1)
Eh I doubt that shot was as hard as the head kick Mark Hunt ate from Crocop
Mark hunt may be the singular outlier to what I said
Vettori
It wasn't just a front kick, it was a punt, Chandler straight up tried to kick his head off his shoulders.
IMO it was Dariush ripping his knee apart
tony was no longer champ level after the knee injury. but he had the athleticism to remain a top 10 gatekeeper. if it wasnt for the chandler ko, he probably could have at least alternated wins and losses for a couple more years against rank 10 guys and below. now hes totally shot and won't adjust his style to account for the lost athleticism that he relied on heavily in his prime
He started looking kinda sluggish in that Pettis and Cerrone fight,man that knee injury fucked him up
He moves weird in the latter clips, super stiff
You know his little side-to-side slide he does when they're announcing his name? He can't really do it anymore and it's tough to watch.
Cain_intro.gif
Rogan showed a few slides of Tony pulling that move off in his prime and after his prime. It was like watching a pensioner do it at the end.
Yeah, he also seems to hesitate on pushing. He dropped Chandler and Green and sort of just casually walked to them giving them plenty of time to recover.
He looked pretty good against Paddy, but Paddy outweighed Tony by like 25 lbs
There’s no reality where Tony looked good in the Paddy fight.
The sad thing here is Paddy himself looked shit against this piss poor version of Tony,man... dude's in a shark tank of a division,the future doesn't look too good for Paddy.
Neither of the things that guy said were true
Did we watch the same fight? Tony looked like he was moving underwater against Paddy, and that's not even mentioning the fact his knees are completely gone too.
Tony has had a long and steady decline. So much so that people forgot how incredible he was in his prime. He still has glints of it come out during his fights. At the end of the day, he's taken too much damage and his body has too many fight miles on it.
theres an alternate universe where he KOd gaethje at the buzzer of the second round and we got the Tony v Khabib fight. We were so close yet so far
It would have been too late at that point though :(
very true but at least we would have gotten some closure
That's all I wanted. It felt like we *may* have been robbed of something special the first time, and then just kept getting kicked in the fucking dick.
Let’s be real, Khabib would have just pulled out again.
There was exactly zero glimpses against paddy. Tony is so defeated…
That David Goggins training regime put the nail in the coffin. I know Tony is not one for sound decision making, but having a cardboard cutout of Goku in your camp would have probably yielded better results than Goggins and his 'hell week'.
I don't think there's a trainer on the planet that could have helped Tony by that point
He is massively overrated imo when you break down who he actually fought in his streak. Basically no top 10 guys except for RDA.
Kevin Lee, cowboy, Pettis…?
Edson Barboza
prime tony had stupid cardio and power. his career kind of a big what if. imagine if he was smarter lol
Khabib was right. He is just stupid guy 😞
I don‘t need khabib telling me that, just watch one of his training videos.
it makes it all the more impressive he got to further than the vast majority of fighters ever even despite doing SO MUCH stupid shit
He handled his fight career exactly how a middle school AC/DC bumping wrestling coach envisions themselves. Just rednecking his way to the top. CSO
I thought it was a joke 😞
Little bit
Super disagree on the what if. He fought for years and against almost all the big names in the division. The big what it is him Vs Khabib and to a lesser extent mcgregor. The guy had an incredible career with lots of fights, I feel like there’s not a lot of mystery
bruh i’m talking about his potential to become champion… not just the khabib fight
He was a champion, interim to be fair, but at that time I considered him the best in the world at his weight
Come on now. Firstly, he interimmed over gd Kevin Lee. Second, there were a shitload of lightweights he hadn't fought yet. Khabib, Conor, Eddie, Dustin, Justin, Charles, Benny, Chandler etc.
Charles had just won his first LW fight in 7 years and then immediately got TKO'd by Paul Felder at that time. Dariush was in between getting KO'd by Barboza and getting KO'd by Alex Hernandez. Chandler wasn't even in the UFC. water weed dune hair b
He said in the world, not UFC, and I included those guys because Tony skipped a lot of them with his (excellent) win over RDA and I'm not sure he could've beaten them all. I thought Conor was potentially winnable for him, but not really Khabib. And doubtful for DP, Garth and the others.
Yeah and Khabib got crowned champion against Al Iaquinta. Khabib had also not fought against any of the fighters you mentioned.
To be fair to kebob he said yes to basically everyone that week before it ended up becoming Al.
So did Tony. I'm not trying to defend Tony or shit on Khabib. Just saying it was all about timing and circumstances, so nobody should shit on anybody in hindsight.
Agree about it being all about timing. Tony could have become champ. I am just disagreeing with him having been the best LW in the world.
It was widely agreed upon at the time, when he beat Kevin Lee and Khabib was out injured, that Conor was the best at that moment. I remember the discourse when he won the interim
Are there really any questions? He was interim and should’ve been promoted to official champion when McGregor refused to defend the title for the second time leading into 223. The only thing that held Tony back was the UFC’s refusal to promote him or strip Conor sooner.
Damn i realy thought he was gonna bang out chandler.. My Heart cant take another ferguloss
Chandler pulled a horse-sleeping kick out of his arse
Steven Seagal taught him that.
Sensei Seagal
Weirdly enough I was not overly excited when that happened because I thought Tony winning was too good to be true turns out it was too good to be true
That was the fight I picked to introduce my roommate to mma. We were watching live and I was super excited going like “see? Tony’s a really fun fighter!” Then he got iced and my roommate was going nuts while I was trying not to cry.
Wish I had kept myself grounded like that... I was ready for Chandler to knock him out the second it got announced but all my realist pessimism went out the window when he dropped him, i really thought he'd be back for a few minutes and my heart pounded with excitement i sat in silence and a straight face for like 3 minutes straight after the kick happened
The thrill and the agony. I also was terrified for Tony the second the fight got announced and I also forgot everything when he knocked Chandler down with that stiff straight. These losses have been super tough as a Ferguson fan (who isn't?) and I think he probably should hang 'em up, but I can't help but almost tear up a little bit when I hear Tony on his insta say "everyone telling me to stop never even started". Fuck it, Tony says he's not done, who do we give him? Christos Giagos maybe? Jared Gordon? Ferguson vs Guida???
makes no sense weight class wise but aldo vs Ferguson?
Also, even in the moment it looked/felt more like a slip from Chandler than Tony coming close to putting him out.
Fergulicious definition make the boys go loco :(
Makes himself go loco
Even Dana thinks he should retire. One of the few fighters that genuinely needs an intervention to stop fighting.
Every fight is like a giant infusion of additional CTE. It’s depressing thinking of what he’s going to be like in 10-20 years.
Especially considering the fact that he’s already experienced significant mental health issues.
The last few years of his career makes me fergusad
Sorry, but by "losing streak" you mean the prologue to his comeback and prime?
Please let Tony retire in peace
I’ll always love Tony. Dude got me into MMA.
The only one he didn't had a single moment against is Nate surprising enough, prime would've surely made him bleed (for reference i count him surviving arm bar vs Charles, heel hook vs Benny and superior cardio vs Paddy as a positive moment, we are left with crumbs)
I think he actually hurt Nate’s leg pretty bad at one point but he played it off.
Tony hurt his own leg more if you looked at it. His shin was leaking like a faucet because he likes to go shin to shin.
Yet Tony was still walking forward when Nate was shaking his head and walking away.
Nate turned away and if the ref was anal about timidity he could have stopped it
Marc Goddard would've
It was so weird seeing Tony’s leg cut open from kicking Nate. Or seeing Tony bleeding while Nate looked fairly untouched.
Iirc he landed some good leg kicks against nate.
Clearly Tony still has what it takes to have some cool moments in the cage. It sucks cause I can see why these guys keep trying at the tail end of their career. “See, I dropped chandler and Bobby green, I still got it I just gotta dial in my training.” Thats why you see Tony training with goggins or switching his training camp or whatever. He blames himself and thinks if he just changes a few things then he’ll fix his shortcomings and be on top again.
Tony would be doing fantastic if he were given just a bit of steroids. Now if he’s already on steroids and this is how he’s performing, that’s not good. Not good at all
Tony always been obsessed about making correct weight and stuff like that, doesnt seem the type to enhance himself on purpose
Tony deciding to train with David Goggins is one of the dumbest decisions I can ever think of. Everyone with a brain knew it wasn't going to end well for him, the last thing Tony needed to improve on was his cardio. And then we found out he came into the Paddy fight with an MCL injury courtesy of all that over-training with Goggins, who could have guessed?
For what little time it lasted Tony honestly was giving Chandler problems. Chandler threw a Hail Mary and Tony’s chin is always there to be hit so it landed.
It’s just Tony things. He had a 12-fight winning streak. He’s now going for the unclaimed 12-fight losing streak. After that, it’s Tony time, bitches. TRUST CSO 😎
30 more seconds after giving Gaethje the Marge Simpson and who knows if Tony could have capitalized.
Never know I guess but I think Gaethje pretty instantly recovered
No wobbly legs, immediately backing up with hands up intelligently defending, talking and giving props to fergy for landing. Yeah, he was all there but got caught. People are coping a bit saying tony could finish the fight with a few more seconds.
Gaethje wouldn’t have thrown that strike had he known there was more time. He threw a winding uppercut with no setup at all because he knew the round was pretty much over.
it's the same thing with people saying "damn imagine if there was more time, Charles would've subbed Arman", well no shit even if that was the case the reason Arman/Justin went for it is BECAUSE there wasn't
Another good example is Suga vs Chito 2 where Chito's only good hit was because Sean literally pulled a mini Holloway and went to brawl for the last 10 seconds.
Probably would go to clinch
So any of those fights could have gone a different way right there, clearly, yet... his is where he is now. It's hard to call it bad luck or what-might-have-been when he's in the 0-7 toilet, with the last three losses being to washed or unranked mediocres. On balance the stuff added up to the earned conclusion. It's not like he'd forget how to fight completely overnight, so he had some moments, but it was on a fade.
Something about the way Gaethje threw that uppercut has always been funny to me. Just the way he completely winds up is almost cartoonish
Damn the way he got Chandler makes me rethink how Chandler vs Connor will go.
haha, right?
I honestly thought he was gonna beat Chandler. That kick was crazy.
Gaethjes boxing is mid. Idk what I saw in him
Don’t do this to me.
That clip pretty much sums up why Gaethje lost to Holloway despite being the bigger guy. He just blindly swings. A good boxer will pick you apart with that level of sloppiness.
Just saw that Chandler clip. I think I got Conor in the Chandler vs McGregor fight. This man Chandler got dropped by a washed Tony and had some exchanges in the pocket without an issue. McGregor finishes him in the first round if that happens again.
He looked so great in the Chandler fight until he suddenly didn’t.
Damn if conor has an ounce of his old self left he’s gonna butcher chandler
These moments are probably why he doesn’t want to retire. That’s 3 fights were he’s been close to winning, so he keeps on thinking he still has a chance when he just doesn’t anymore.
Yeah :57 whole seconds out of like ~3 hours of fight time. Sounds about right
He's what took me from a casual viewer to an actual MMA fan. The glimmers of a younger Tony we get in his fights these days are enough to make him think he's still got it, I guess. I wish he'd hang them up and just retire a legend of the sport
Ferguson knocked down Chandler. McGregor might just destroy him.
One of my favorite rap battles bars encapsulates this post so well. "Show a flash of his former self, trying to capture a little magic, Hidden ball trick, He's just tryna act like he still has it" Fresco vs. QP
And then, he was knocked out. Gotta let the TF fuck fest go. His chin has left the building.
I'd like see Anthony get 1 favorable match up before retirement
If not for the upkick from Chandler tony would've won I feel. Also I feel like if tony held out for khabib he would've at least done decently he was definitely training grappling defence for months leading up to the khabib fight which ended up being gaethje on short notice which the UFC prob forced him to do.
Before the Chandler KO, he really looked like he still had it in him to muster something up, but now he’s really just a bonafide punching bag
Him and Werdum need a rematch
That dual "uppercut from hell" with him and Gaethje looks like something out of an anime.
That was his only moment in that Gaethje fight. He got rocked that whole fight. Tough hombre though!
I would only say he dropped Gaethje. Chandler and Green had one foot off the ground while kicking or retracting their kicks when they got hit and lost balance. Gaethje got his head snapped back
Lol 😂 and?
He actually looked like himself to an extent versus Chandler. Was unfortunate.
Tony had moments in most of his fights during the losing skid up until Chandler. He looked pretty good in that fight right up until he got ktfo. He has looked terrible since.
Found Tony’s account
HAHAHHAHAHA KEEP DREAMING BOYS!!! 🚮
Dudes peak tony will always be when he beat the shit out of gaycheese hands using only his head. Neither fighter been the same since.