{"id":287213,"date":"2018-10-07T12:34:27","date_gmt":"2018-10-07T19:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=287213"},"modified":"2018-10-07T12:34:27","modified_gmt":"2018-10-07T19:34:27","slug":"tony-ferguson-asserts-that-he-is-the-real-champ-after-khabib-nurmagomedov-and-conor-mcgregors-brawl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/tony-ferguson\/tony-ferguson-asserts-that-he-is-the-real-champ-after-khabib-nurmagomedov-and-conor-mcgregors-brawl\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Ferguson asserts that he is the real champ after Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor’s brawl"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Saturday night, in the co-main event of UFC 229, former interim lightweight champion Tony Ferguson made a successful return to action after a long layoff, picking up an impressive win over the former champion Anthony Pettis. Not long thereafter, in the card’s main event, UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov defeated Conor McGregor to retain his title.<\/p>\n

Shortly after Nurmagomedov bested McGregor, the pair’s team engaged in a wild brawl inside and outside of the Octagon. Having witnessed this chaotic and unsportsmanlike scene, Tony Ferguson believes that neither Nurmagomedov nor McGregor is deserving of the UFC lightweight belt. In his opinion, he himself is the true lightweight champ.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m the f*cking champ. You guys realize that, right?,\u201d Ferguson said at the UFC 229 post-fight press conference (transcript via MMA Fighting<\/a>). \u201cI\u2019ve been the champ. I am the champ. You have these two knuckleheads over there making this sport look bad. \u2026 I don\u2019t have a belt up here, I don\u2019t need to have a belt up here to be the champ. So if you guys want to feed that, go ahead, put that in your pocket and take it with you.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what I\u2019m doing here is cleaning up the sport. This is an Olympic-level type of sport and it needs to be cleaned up. I\u2019ve been training like an Olympian. I\u2019ve took so many different things out of my life that I didn\u2019t need anymore and I just felt lifted. So awesome. Such a great feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tony Ferguson continued:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen this stuff happens in different sports, it puts a bad taste in it,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we\u2019re trying to clean it up and we\u2019re trying to clean it up as much as possible. That\u2019s not for me anymore, I don\u2019t have to get all crazy on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s another fighter in front of me, which I hope is Khabib or Conor \u2014 I even call him Conor, I\u2019ll give him that respect \u2014 I don\u2019t have to call them \u2018tiramisu\u2019 or \u2018McNuggets\u2019 because I have all the sauce, and I\u2019m very sweet.\u201d<\/p>\n

What do you think of these comments from Tony Ferguson?<\/p>\n

This article first appeared on\u00a0<\/i>BJPENN.COM<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0on 10\/7\/2018.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Saturday night, in the co-main event of UFC 229, former interim lightweight champion Tony Ferguson made a successful return to action after a long layoff, picking up an impressive win over the former champion Anthony Pettis. Not long thereafter, in the card’s main event, UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov defeated Conor McGregor to retain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54430,"featured_media":287214,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10089,10114,10113,39610],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nTony Ferguson asserts that he is the real champ after Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor's brawl | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/tony-ferguson\/tony-ferguson-asserts-that-he-is-the-real-champ-after-khabib-nurmagomedov-and-conor-mcgregors-brawl\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tony Ferguson asserts that he is the real champ after Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor's brawl | BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On Saturday night, in the co-main event of UFC 229, former interim lightweight champion Tony Ferguson made a successful return to action after a long layoff, picking up an impressive win over the former champion Anthony Pettis. Not long thereafter, in the card’s main event, UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov defeated Conor McGregor to retain […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/tony-ferguson\/tony-ferguson-asserts-that-he-is-the-real-champ-after-khabib-nurmagomedov-and-conor-mcgregors-brawl\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"| BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bjpenn\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-10-07T19:34:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/Tony-Ferguson-6.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"696\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"399\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tom Taylor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" 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