The UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) has had a lot of matches that look like they were not going to happen before, out of nowhere, the fight is scheduled and it happens.
However, one of the most notorious fights, in recent memory, that never ended up happening was between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson. During this time Khabib Nurmagomedov was easily the number one contender for the vacant UFC Lightweight title, meanwhile Tony Ferguson was on a huge eight fight winning streak and was the number two contender for the vacant UFC Lightweight title. So, it should have been easy to find out who was the better fighter between the two, but the fight was cancelled five times.
The first time the fight was announced was on August, 21, 2015, but unfortunately on October, 30th of the same year Khabib pulled out via a rib injury that was suffered during his training for the fight. Tony Ferguson was able to beat his replacement Edson Barboza in the second round via D’arce choke keeping the hype for his Khabib bout intact.
The second time the fight was announced was on January, 26, 2016, but this time Tony Ferguson had to pull out via some sort of lung issue on April, 5th, 2016. Khabib Nurmagomedov was able to easily beat Tony Ferguson’s replacement Darrell Horcher easily via TKO in the second round. After the fight Khabib called out the champion, but he didn’t get the fight that he wanted.
The third time the fight was announced was on January, 12, 2017, but Khabib Nurmagomedov had to pull out via weigh-in issues as Khabib was hospitalized before the fight trying to cut weight for this bout. Dana White started to have issues with Khabib Nurmagomedov and his team as he was very upset that they let this happen.
The fourth time this fight was announced was on January, 17, 2018, but unfortunately Tony Ferguson had to pull out because of his surgery on his lateral collateral ligament.
The final time this fight was announced was on November, 25, 2019, but then COVID-19 happened and unfortunately for the fans the fight was cancelled for the fifth time.
After all this drama going on Khabib’s manager Ali Abdelaziz had this to say about the Tony Ferguson fight “love Tony Ferguson — he’s not that, I can tell you that. One-hundred percent, Tony Ferguson is not the next fight, because Tony Ferguson — I need somebody who can sell pay-per-views.”
In conclusion, you can’t always get what you want in life, but luckily for MMA fans around the world this sport will always have exciting fights going on and even though we didn’t get this fight, we have had a lot of amazing fights that did happen throughout all this drama.
