Former UFC Interim Lightweight Champion Tony Ferguson faces former UFC Lightweight Champion Anthony Pettis in the co-main event of UFC 229.
The former title holder was stripped of the championship just before UFC 223 and the whole situation has made Ferguson angry.
“It’s been five months since my injury,” Ferguson said at the UFC 229 media day. “It took a long f*cking time for me to be here. They took my belt, they took a bunch of zeroes from my pay check. How do you think I f*cking feel? It’s all fun and games, right?”
Ferguson was supposed to unify the title against Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 223, but pulled out of the fight due to injury.
While Ferguson isn’t happy to be stripped of the gold, it did show him how much was gained in the long run.
“I’m the f*cking champ,” Ferguson said. “See this gold right here. I didn’t lose my belt. They took it from me. The one thing they didn’t take is my smile. So after my surgery, I made a conscious decision to not want anybody else’s help that didn’t want to help me. So yeah, I’ve got a little chip on my shoulder. It’s still there. It f*cking weighs a lot. But in this whole entire process, I gained so much more than you guys would ever imagine.”
UFC 229 takes place on Saturday, October 6 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada with Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
