Tony Ferguson (photo via UFC)

By FCF Staff

Tony Ferguson is calling for a bout with UFC lightweight champ, Khabib Nurmagomedov, following his pivotal win over Anthony Pettis at UFC 229.

Ferguson returned to the cage for the first time in approximately one year on Saturday, and went on to stop Pettis at the end of round two (the latter’s corner stopped the fight, as a result of Pettis reportedly having a broken hand). Later in the evening, Nurmagomedov defended the 155 title, by submitting Conor McGregor in round four.

At the post-fight press conference, Ferguson relayed the following, while discussing his next bout (quote via MMA Fighting):

“Khabib and I deserve to fight,” Ferguson said. “We need to fight for the fifth time, we need to try this out again. He is the champ, I was the interim champ. I’m still the f**king champ. There’s no BS in this.

“Conor does not want to fight me. I saw him when we were walking out to the weigh-ins. He walked up, he did his strut, I turned around and he f**king stopped. He looked like a deer in headlights. Nobody wants to be trapped inside that cage with me. They don’t want to get killed by my elbows. They don’t want to get hit by any of my kicks and they don’t want to get their conditioning checked by me. I’m a different animal than these guys. They want to be animals inside there, I’m a dogcatcher guys. I got a noose for them.”

Ferguson (24-3) extended his winning streak to 11 on Saturday with the victory. “El Cucuy” had been sidelined for much of 2018, after incurring a knee injury this past spring.