Tony Ferguson shuts down potential Conor McGregor bout

Tony Ferguson believes Conor McGregor should be fighting celebrities, and leaving the real action to the top dogs in the lightweight division.

During the latest episode of Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show, Ferguson discussed a potential fight with McGregor. He doubts anybody would be interested.

“No way, man, the fans wouldn’t have it,” he said. “They’d put up too much of a fight.”

“He’s been fighting old men lately, he’s trying to fight Mark Wahlberg,” Ferguson continued (transcript via MMA Mania). “Maybe that’s the fight for him. The dude’s got a couple of things, making his money, doing his thing. I don’t know if he wants to fight anymore, but he is not my concern.”

The Showman needs to put on a show according to Tony Ferguson. He feels McGregor is no longer relevant due to his inactivity and his troubles outside the cage.

“He is like one of those ex-girlfriends,” he said. “I stopped worrying about that dude. At first he was in line trying to go for the title, and once he became irrelevant I stopped caring about him. Now he’s mentioning my name? Get the f*** out of here dude, come on.”

If not a fight with Conor McGregor, what is Ferguson’s next move? He says is focused on a title shot and not busting up an American movie star. He is currently riding a 12-fight winning streak and is waiting for the opportunity to fight the UFC 242 main event winner.

UFC 242, scheduled for Saturday in Abu Dhabi, will be topped by a lightweight title unification match between undisputed champ Khabib Nurmagomedov and interim champ Dustin Poirier. If all goes ahead, Ferguson plans to fight the winner at UFC 245 — the end of year pay-per-view event on December 14 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 9/4/2019.