Tony Ferguson dropped his seventh consecutive fight in a row when he lost a lopsided decision to Paddy Pimblett at UFC 296, but it remains to be seen what his future holds.
If UFC CEO Dana White had his way, the former interim lightweight champion would call it a career because it’s pretty clear at this stage that Ferguson’s best days are clearly behind him.
“I would love to see Tony retire,” White said about Ferguson at the UFC 296 post-fight press conference.
During that seven-fight losing streak, Ferguson has been knocked out or submitted four times and his other three defeats came in shut out performances. He fell to Charles Oliveira in a dominant decision win for the Brazilian and then Ferguson duplicated that when he clashed with Beneil Dariush six months later.
At UFC 296, Ferguson didn’t win a round against Pimblett, who nearly scored a first-round finish after connecting with a devastating combination on the feet that led to a barrage of shots also landing on the ground. While Ferguson was able to survive, he just couldn’t do much to mount any real offense against Pimblett over three rounds.
White says the biggest difference with those other six losses is Ferguson still hung tough from the first second of the fight until the last. That just wasn’t the case while clashing with Pimblett at UFC 296.
“When you talk about a skid, you look at the guys he fought, too,” White explained. “That plays a factor into it and how did he look right up until he lost? Tony tonight looked like he should retire.”
White hasn’t spoken to Ferguson yet to get his take on the future so it’s impossible to know where he stands right now or if he even wants to fight again.
Rather than make any assumptions, White won’t offer anything more than his opinion that Ferguson should probably consider hanging up his gloves for good
“Listen, Tony’s been an absolute warrior and a dog in this sport,” White said. “I don’t want to disrespect him by publicly talking about him retiring but I would love to see him retire. That’s really where my head’s at.”
