UFC 249: Tony Ferguson says Khabib should be stripped of lightweight title after dropping out of fight
- ‘This guy does not want to fight – he’s scared, he’s running,’ claims Ferguson
- ‘He has the power to take a private plane ... I guarantee this dude is gonna try to retire without fighting me’
Tony Ferguson has called for Khabib Nurmagomedov to be stripped of his title after the UFC lightweight champion confirmed he is out of their fight on April 18.
“The Eagle” said he is stranded in Russia, where the borders are closed amid the global Covid-19 pandemic, meaning his highly-anticipated bout with “El Cucuy” has been scrapped for a fifth time. The UFC is still frantically trying to find a location for UFC 249, with the Barclays Center in Brooklyn out of the equation.
“I was very upset, I feel more for everybody else that was going through some hard times,” Ferguson told Ariel Helwani on ESPN’s SportsCenter. “I’m, of course, a little bit pissed. He was in Abu Dhabi, he had the chance to come back here before the borders were closed in Russia. He decided to go back to Dagestan, didn’t finish his camp.
“The guy does not want to fight. He’s scared. He’s running. He should be stripped of his title.”
“He did the exact same thing at UFC 209. He knew he wasn’t cutting weight very quick. He said already he was having a hard time cutting weight, doing everything else.