- ‘This guy does not want to fight – he’s scared, he’s running,’ claims Ferguson
- ‘He has the power to take a private plane … I guarantee this dude is gonna try to retire without fighting me’
Tony Ferguson has called for Khabib Nurmagomedov to be stripped of his title after the UFC lightweight champion confirmed he is out of their fight on April 18.
"The Eagle" said he is stranded in Russia, where the borders are closed amid the global Covid-19 pandemic, meaning his highly-anticipated bout with "El Cucuy" has been scrapped for a fifth time. The UFC is still frantically trying to find a location for UFC 249, with the Barclays Center in Brooklyn out of the equation.
"I was very upset, I feel more for everybody else that was going through some hard times," Ferguson told Ariel Helwani on ESPN's SportsCenter. "I'm, of course, a little bit pissed. He was in Abu Dhabi, he had the chance to come back here before the borders were closed in Russia. He decided to go back to Dagestan, didn't finish his camp.
"The guy does not want to fight. He's scared. He's running. He should be stripped of his title."
"He did the exact same thing at UFC 209. He knew he wasn't cutting weight very quick. He said already he was having a hard time cutting weight, doing everything else.
"To me right there he's running away. He knew what he could do to help save this card. He didn't wanna take any of those chances. Everybody's taking risks but he bailed out. It's pretty hard to explain but he bailed out."
Khabib rails at UFC fans criticising him for self-quarantining
Khabib wrote an angry Instagram post blasting fans for criticising him for self-quarantining, but Ferguson claimed the champion could easily get out of Russia if he wanted to.
"Bro, you have an obligation. You signed on the dotted line to represent your country, that's what he said. He ran, he did everything he could to avoid that ass whooping," Ferguson said.
"Even this morning they said they were gonna allow flights out. As far as Khabib goes, he has the opportunities and he has the power to be able to take a private plane, come back and finish his training camp and be able to do UFC 249 for all the people out there.
"He doesn't want to fight, I guarantee this dude is gonna try to retire without fighting me."
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