Ferguson: I don’t think my title will go away

The first UFC interim title was won by Randy Couture, when he defeated Chuck Liddell at UFC 43 on June 6, 2003. At UFC 44 on September 26 of the same year, Couture unified the belts, defeating Tito Ortiz. Since then the practice has become commonplace.

UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor was too busy to defend his title, so on October 7, 2017 at UFC 216, Tony Ferguson beat Kevin Lee for the interim belt. Ferguson was scheduled to fight #1 contender Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 223 on Saturday. It was contracted that the winner would be the undisputed belt, meaning McGregor loses it.

Then Ferguson injured his knee after he tripped over a heavy cable in darkened room on Thursday, while fulfilling media duties at FOX; he will apparently need surgery. Featherweight champ Max Holloway stepped up. The title is still going to be for the undisputed belt, which means both McGregor and Ferguson are losing their belts on Saturday. Unless there’s a draw in the main event.

During a recent appearance on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour, Ferguson made a heartfelt case for not being stripped.

I haven’t spoken with the UFC yet about what’s next, said Ferguson, as transcribed by Dave Doyle for MMA Fighting. So when I saw what was in the [ESPN] interview, it shocked me, man, it hurt me even more. It was something I couldn’t control with this injury. This all started snowballing this weekend, man. Of all weekends. The UFC hasn’t said anything to me about my title going away, and I don’t think it will go away.

You shouldn’t strip a champion due to a freak injury that happened during a UFC-obligated media event. … It was just a matter of, I slipped, man. I heard it pop. Once we got back to the car after FOX interviewed us, I turned to wife to tell her what happened, and she was concerned. I had a couple of my team members, and UFC staff with me. Afterward, I went home and did a pool workout and I felt tension and danger in my workout. I woke up on Friday with some pain and I still tried to push through it. You guys know me, I’m tough. I tried to train later that evening after taking a day of rest but my knee locked up.

I woke up Saturday with even more pain, but I tried to push through it and train again. But it locked up on me, my knee was giving out a few times, and slowly it dawned on me, I knew something was f*cked up and more serious.

I’m not a doctor. But when I saw my MRI image, dude, I don’t know about you, but I was like it looked like a flag with my ligament, it was hanging on the side of the pole. I wanted them to shoot me with some sort of numbing shot or whatever they put, but they said it was likely it would blew up whole entire knee.

Whittaker maintained his interim belt when he was too injured to fight then champ Michael Bisping in a unification bout. Then GSP beat Bisping, and vacated the belt, leaving Whittaker with the unified title.

I mean seriously, there is a precedent for having a fight for a real title and keeping an interim title intact, said Ferguson. They just did that with Robert Whittaker last year.

I just hope they do the right thing.

Ferguson will be stripped of his interim belt, barring a bizarre outcome on Saturday night. It’s not reasonable that the organization has yet to explain that to him, and why.