Fast facts
- Division: MFB middleweight (boxing); competed at lightweight and welterweight in the UFC
- Record: 3-0 in professional boxing, per Bloody Elbow
- Nationality: American, of Mexican heritage
- Team/gym: Drafted by the GFL’s Team Los Angeles in 2025; third pick for Team Lesnar on The Ultimate Fighter 13
- Notable wins: Kevin Lee, Rafael dos Anjos, Edson Barboza, Anthony Pettis, Donald Cerrone
The whole thing started with an ear. Tony Ferguson was back in California after college, selling and marketing by day and tending bar at night, when a customer noticed the cauliflowered cartilage on the side of his head and started talking wrestling with him. The customer turned out to be a trainer at a local MMA gym, and he asked Ferguson to come help some young fighters with their takedowns. That unnamed coach never shows up in a highlight package, but he’s the reason the rest of this story exists.
On Monday, Renato Moicano reduced that story to a warning label. Sitting with Ariel Helwani after his loss to Tom Nolan at UFC Vegas 123, Moicano said he plans to finish the three fights left on his UFC deal and then chase influencer boxing money. Along the way, he offered this: “I don’t wanna be like Tony Ferguson. Eight fights, trying to be a champion, 40 years old, on a six-fight losing streak. I don’t want that.”
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The numbers are a little scrambled (the streak was eight, and Ferguson turned 40 in early 2024), and the irony is hard to miss. The life Moicano described wanting is the one Ferguson is living right now, and he’s undefeated in it.
Muskegon
Ferguson was born Anthony Armand Ferguson Padilla in Oxnard, California, on February 12, 1984, and raised mostly in Muskegon, Michigan. The Ferguson name came from his Scottish American stepfather. At Muskegon Catholic Central he played football, baseball and wrestled, starting at defensive back on the 2000 Division 8 state championship team and making All-State three times on the mat, winning the 152-pound title in 2002.
College was a winding road. He went to Central Michigan, then transferred to Grand Valley State, with a stint at Muskegon Community College too. He never finished a degree, but he won the 2006 National Collegiate Wrestling Association title at 165 pounds. Then he moved west to be near extended family and poured drinks until somebody looked at his ear.
The long way in
Nobody handed Ferguson a UFC contract. He fought on small California shows, beat future kickboxing star Joe Schilling, lost to Karen Darabedyan, and applied to The Ultimate Fighter more than once before season 13 finally took him in 2010. By then he was 10-2 and the PureCombat welterweight champion.
Brock Lesnar picked him third. Ferguson stopped all three of his house opponents (Justin Edwards and Ryan McGillivray in Round 1, Chuck O’Neil in Round 3), then knocked out Ramsey Nijem in the first round of the finale for the contract and a $40,000 bonus.
He dropped to lightweight, beat Aaron Riley and Yves Edwards, and then lost a decision to Michael Johnson in May 2012, a fight he took after two other opponents fell out. He hurt his arm in that bout and spent more than a year healing.
Twelve straight
What came next is why people still talk about him the way they do. Starting with a first-round D’Arce choke of Mike Rio at UFC 166 in October 2013, Ferguson won 12 in a row. He knocked out Katsunori Kikuno, submitted Abel Trujillo and Gleison Tibau, and choked out Edson Barboza in Round 2 of a wild fight in December 2015 despite losing a point for an illegal upkick in the first. He beat former champion Rafael dos Anjos over three rounds in November 2016, and at one stretch he collected six bonuses across five fights.
The style was its own weather system. He’d set up D’Arce chokes from positions other lightweights considered safe, take damage he seemed to find interesting, and keep coming. At UFC 216 in October 2017 he submitted Kevin Lee with a triangle in Round 3 for the interim lightweight title. Lee, who opened a Dallas restaurant called Braised on November 1, retired with an 11-8 UFC record, and that night against Ferguson remains his only shot at UFC gold.
Then he forced Anthony Pettis’s corner to stop their fight after two rounds at UFC 229 and swelled Donald Cerrone’s right eye shut at UFC 238 in June 2019. Between those two wins, in March 2019, his wife Cristina filed a temporary restraining order citing paranoia and sleep deprivation, among other concerns. She did not allege physical abuse, said the filing was meant to push him toward help, and withdrew it by April.
Khabib, five times
You can’t profile Ferguson without the fight that never happened. He was booked against Khabib Nurmagomedov five times. Khabib withdrew injured in 2015. Ferguson pulled out with a lung issue in 2016. Khabib was hospitalized during his weight cut before UFC 209. Ferguson tore a ligament in his knee walking on a media set days before UFC 223. And in 2020, pandemic travel restrictions kept Khabib in Russia before UFC 249.
It’s the great unfinished sentence of the lightweight division, and it’s a big part of why Ferguson is widely called one of the best fighters never to hold an undisputed UFC belt.
Eight in a row
Ferguson took Justin Gaethje on short notice at UFC 249 in May 2020, and Gaethje outstruck him for five rounds before the referee stopped it in Round 5. Charles Oliveira and Beneil Dariush then controlled him on the ground for decisions. Michael Chandler knocked him out early in Round 2 after Ferguson won the first. Nate Diaz guillotined him in Round 4 at UFC 279. Bobby Green caught him with an arm-triangle in the final seconds of Round 3. Paddy Pimblett took a decision at UFC 296. Michael Chiesa finished him with a rear-naked choke in Round 1 on August 3, 2024.
That made eight, passing B.J. Penn for the longest losing streak in UFC history. It’s a brutal record. It’s also the record of a guy who kept saying yes to top-15 opponents when easier exits were available.
The second act
He left the UFC in January 2025 and signed with the Global Fight League, which drafted him to Team Los Angeles the same day. A May bout with Dillon Danis evaporated when the GFL postponed its first two events indefinitely.
So he went boxing. On August 30, 2025, in Manchester, he stopped Filipino influencer Salt Papi in Round 3 for the MFB interim middleweight title. In Dubai on December 20, he beat Warren Spencer by unanimous decision (49-45, 49-45, 48-46) for the vacant full title after AnEsonGib relinquished it. In Miami on September 28, 2026, he stopped short-notice replacement Mahmoud Sebie in Round 2 to keep the belt. Bloody Elbow cited a Sportster estimate putting his base purses somewhere between $200,000 and $500,000.
He also signed with Real American Freestyle in April 2026 and lost to Arman Tsarukyan, now ranked second at lightweight by Sportsnaut, by technical fall at RAF 10 on June 13. The 2006 national champion was back on a wrestling mat at 42 against one of the best grapplers in MMA, which tells you everything about how he picks his fights.
Moicano is allowed his plan, and plenty of fighters would sign up for his version of an exit. But Ferguson didn’t fade into a cautionary tale. After he beat Sebie in Miami, he stood in the ring and faced off with YouTuber Austin McBroom.
