Tony Ferguson has been surprisingly vocal following his brutal UFC 274 front kick knockout loss to Michael Chandler. Whether he’s speaking about his fighting future or calling out doubters, “El Cucuy” is pulling no punches.

Among the more odd interactions that the always-unique Ferguson has had in the wake of his defeat involved former UFC light heavyweight and heavyweight titlist, Daniel Cormier.

The former UFC interim lightweight champion took to Twitter with a clip of Cormier on the scales for his UFC 210 rematch with Anthony Johnson where there was a slight controversy that Cormier cheated his weight by putting his hands on the towel. Ferguson commented: “How Not to Make Weight Ladies & Gentlemen. Shoulda Stripped Em’ Like They Did @CharlesDoBronxs Shout Out To All Those Doin’ It Right & Keepin’ The Sport Clean.”

Cormier played a long briefly telling Ferguson to stop and that he was making him “sad.” Ultimately, the former Olympian believes the source of the matter boils down to him being close with Ferguson’s biggest career rival.

“What he’s talking about is ‘enjoy my retirement with Khabib [Nurmagomedov],’” Cormier said on DC & RC. “That is one of the biggest issues that I have had with Tony Ferguson. Literally my relationship with Khabib. I did an interview with him for my YouTube channel the other day and we’re talking off air and it was fine. We spoke about wrestling, our heroes, all these great things. The interview starts and he immediately brings up Khabib Nurmagomedov.

“As we’re going forward in the interview, I ask him a follow-up question on that. I go, ‘Tony, do you think maybe you should live in the now? Not worry about Khabib? That’s a confrontation you never got to have.’ He threatened to walk off the interview and now he comes at me. Bro, what’re you worried about me for? Michael Chandler kicked you in the face, bro! There’s three things: ‘D.C.,’ ‘R.C.’ (Ryan Clark), and sometimes there’s an ‘M.C.’ Worry about ‘MC!’ Not me. I’m retired, I’m a heavyweight.”

The relationship between Cormier and Nurmagomedov stems from their time as training partners at American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, California. Nurmagomedov retired with a perfect 29-0 record in Oct. 2020 immediately after a second-round triangle choke submission of Justin Gaethje. Throughout their runs as the clear top lightweights in the world, Nurmagomedov and Ferguson were booked to fight on five different occasions with some type of issue — typically an injury — always preventing them from getting their hands on each other. In the wildest of all five instances, Ferguson tore his FCL on April Fool’s Day when tripping backstage on the set of a pre-fight media obligation.

After the initial reaction to Ferguson, Cormier was quickly met with an out-of-left-field accusation of cocaine use when the lightweight told him to “Lay Off The Yay Buddy [tissue emoji] Not A Good Look [eyeball emoji] You Make Yourself Look Sad. I’m already back to work [cross emoji] I don’t quit like you.”

“It’s like he has these issues with Khabib and because of these issues with Khabib, he continues to come at me which I don’t quite understand,” Cormier said. “When you lose in the way that he did, you gotta go away for a little bit, man. Like, take some time, recover, get your mind back in a place where you can compete effectively instead of trying to fight with the guy that commentates the fight. He attacked me, he attacked [Joe] Rogan, he attacked everybody but Jon Anik. Which is very weird because one time we got into a fighter meeting and he wouldn’t speak to Jon Anik! So the guy’s just all over the place. It’s kind of crazy, dude needs to take a break and rest and recover. Because this dude’s trippin’.

“When you start to accuse a guy of drug use, now you’re starting to play a different game because obviously we’re family men and I don’t do stuff like that and I’ve never done that. So it’s like hard for someone to say something like that to me.”

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LISTEN UP

Fighter vs. Writer. MMA Fighting’s Damon Martin chats with Beneil Dariush and Junior Dos Santos.

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SOCIAL MEDIA BOUILLABAISSE

Paris?!

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FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS

Alex “Cowboy” Oliveira (22-12-1) vs. Michel “Sassarito” Silva (22-10-1); BF Mr. Cage, June 10

Cody Brundage (7-2) vs. Tresean Gore (3-1); UFC Fight Night, July 9.

Devin Clark (13-6) vs. Azamat Murzakanov (11-0); UFC Fight Night, Aug. 13

Aspen Ladd (9-3) vs. Sara McMann (13-6); UFC Fight Night, Aug. 13

Trey Ogden (15-5) vs. Daniel Zellhuber (12-0); UFC Fight Night, Sept. 10

Georgi Karakhanyan (31-13-1) vs. Kane Mousah (13-4); Bellator Dublin, Sept. 23

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FINAL THOUGHTS

For a good while, many believed Doo Ho Choi wore the crown of “most unassumingly dangerous human on the planet.” Has Seika Izawa since stolen that claim? I think yes. Thanks for reading!

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EXIT POLL

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