Tony Ferguson just took on Bobby Green on the main card of UFC 291. While Ferguson is not the same fighter that he was back in 2018, fans still had hopes that he would show flashes of his old self against Green and get the job done. Although Tony caught Green with a sneaky strike early on in the fight, the latter dominated the rest of the bout and secured perhaps the most high-profile win of his career.
While Bobby “King” Green is currently on cloud nine, things are looking dire for Tony Ferguson. Since his brutal loss against Justin Gaethje at UFC 249 in 2020, Tony is yet to look threatening in a fight and he has seemingly lost the fire inside him. Even against Green, Tony looked significantly slower as the fight progressed. As per UFC stats, Tony landed a total of 62 strikes and 54 of them were significant ones.
BOBBY GREEN SUBMITS TONY FERGUSON! @BobbyKGreen gets the finish with seconds left at #UFC291! pic.twitter.com/HuRLRFYIRH
— UFC (@ufc) July 30, 2023
During the finishing sequence, Ferguson never tapped out. Instead, he threw his body up in the air and screamed out in pain before passing out. The round 3 arm-triangle marks only the third submission loss of Tony’s career. His last submission was against Nate Diaz at UFC 279.
In the UFC 291 bout, Bobby out-landed him with 145 total strikes and 137 significant strikes. It just proves that “El Cucuy” is perhaps past his prime and former UFC lightweight champ Khabib Nurmagomedov agreed. While the two were scheduled to fight several times, one thing or the other always played an obstacle and the contest never happened.
However, The Eagle did keep his opinion on Tony after UFC 249 and added, “Nobody can be same long time, nobody. No Tony Ferguson, no Khabib, nobody. One day someone gonna beat you or something gonna happen.” Adding that no fighter can maintain the same level of skills throughout their career, Nurmagomedov added, “Tony Ferguson’s time is finished.”
Tony Ferguson loses his 6th fight in a row at UFC 291
Tony Ferguson has not won a fight since June 2019. His last win was against Donald Cerrone at UFC 238, which he won via TKO after two rounds. Since then, Justin Gaethje beat him via TKO, Michael Chandler KO’ed him in round 2, and both Nate Diaz and Bobby Green submitted him at UFC 279 and UFC 291 respectively. Other than that, both Beniel Dariush and Charles Oliveira beat him via unanimous decision.
Tony Ferguson exits the octagon after dropping his 6th straight fight vs. Bobby Green at #UFC291.
— MMA Junkie (@MMAJunkie) July 30, 2023
Is this the end? pic.twitter.com/6kWDX7BYsm
His career has followed the same trajectory that Tyron Woodley’s career had. The former welterweight champ just fell off a cliff after beating Darren Till at UFC 228 and lost all 4 of his next fights in the UFC and ended up being released from the promotion. Will Tony Ferguson suffer the same fate as Woodley? It would be interesting to see what the future has in store for the former interim UFC lightweight champion.
