Fifth time unlucky: Charting the cursed history of Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Tony Ferguson (VIDEO)
RT Sport takes a look back at the turbulent history of fight bookings involving Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson after the fight fell through at the FIFTH attempt.
It was just too good to be true.
The fifth time will not be the charm for the lightweight pairing of Tony Ferguson and current UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov. While several somewhat believable occurrences prevented the bout from taking place the first four times, no one could have predicted what happened to scupper the fight for the fifth time.
Nurmagomedov and Ferguson's first slated matchup dates all the way back to December 11, 2015, at The Ultimate Fighter 22 finale. Interestingly enough, that season of the hit TV series saw one of the teams coached by Conor McGregor, who obviously has an intertwining history with both of these elite lightweights.
At the time, "The Eagle" was fresh off of his big win over future UFC champion and Top 5-ranked Rafael Dos Anjos. With all the momentum in the world and a title shot seemingly within grasp with one more win, the Russian was then unfortunately struck by the injury bug.
Also on rt.com UFC 249 to take place on TRIBAL LAND in California to circumvent lockdown laws - reportsThe Dos Anjos win came in April 2014 and Nurmagomedov would be matched against Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone later that year, only to be forced out with a knee injury. The fight was rebooked for May 2019 where Nurmagomedov pulled out thanks to yet another knee injury.
By that point, the UFC and Cerrone had moved on, as "Cowboy" racked up four straight wins to extend his streak and earn his first and only career UFC title shot.
That led to the first pairing of Nurmagomedov and Ferguson, but Nurmagomedov was forced out due to a rib injury, which led to an all-striking clash between Ferguson and Edson Barboza as the two picked up Fight of the Night honors. "El Cucuy" scored the win via second-round submission with a D'Arce choke making it his seventh win in a row.
Nurmagomedov would eventually return from a two-year hiatus with a dominant win over Darrell Horcher. Why was he facing Horcher of all people? Yep, you guessed it. Because he was set to face Ferguson, but this time it was the American who had to pull out due to injury.
Directly prior to that matchup, Ferguson also had a different fight canceled as he was set to rematch Michael Johnson who withdrew at UFC 196. Johnson remains the last man to have defeated the former interim champion in Ferguson.
Now, having been booked opposite one another twice before in the past and each pulled out, it was time for their biggest spot yet as a pay-per-view co-main event. Because, as they had kept on winning, their matchup had only gotten bigger.
March 4, 2017, was the date for UFC 209 and an interim lightweight title matchup between the two was set to take place. This time, it looked like the fight was actually going to happen. That was until weigh-in day...
Complications with his weight cut led to Nurmagomedov being hospitalized and the fight was, once again, called off. This one was devastating for all, to say the least.
Despite both being ready to go relatively quickly afterward considering the circumstances, Ferguson would stay in the interim title picture as he took on Kevin Lee at UFC 216 in October of that same year while Nurmagomedov battled the aforementioned Barboza two months later.
In hindsight, it's a tad frustrating that the fourth chance to make this fight happen didn't happen at either of the events that they separately fought on.
Both would win their respective matches, of course, but now Ferguson was seemingly guaranteed a big-time bout with the undisputed champion Conor McGregor.
That didn't happen either.
Instead, the Irishman headed into the boxing world and took an L against Floyd Mayweather. It led the UFC to book a fight that saw him lose his title in the process – that fight featuring interim champion Ferguson against the undefeated Nurmagomedov. Oh boy, UFC 223, here we go.
The event remains the most infamous and insane fight week in MMA history. As the story goes, Nurmagomedov and McGregor's longtime teammate Artem Lobov, who was also fighting that week, ran into one another in the hotel hallway and had an altercation. Things didn't result too well for Lobov – at least that was how McGregor clearly felt about the episode.
Arriving in Brooklyn as soon as he could, McGregor stormed the Barclays Center while the fighters of the event were departing via fighter bus and proceeded to hurl a dolly at the bus carrying Nurmagomedov. His intent was to send a message and/or harm his rival but, rather than succeed in doing that, he injured Michael Chiesa and Ray Borg, who suffered lacerations to their faces and eyes from the broken glass, leading to their fights being canceled as they could no longer compete.
Lobov also had his fight canceled as he was involved in the incident. Even before all of this went down, Ferguson and Nurmagomedov had been halted yet again as, unbelievably, Ferguson tripped on a power cord on his way to do an interview and tore his ACL. This coming on April Fool's Day of all days...
Also on rt.com 'We all made mistakes on that one': Dana White defends Khabib Nurmagomedov's UFC 249 withdrawalUFC featherweight champion Max Holloway stepped up to save the day only to be pulled from the bout after the New York State Athletic Commission prevented him from cutting weight for safety purposes.
Eventually, we ended up with Nurmagomedov vs. Al Iaquinta, who was originally going to face Paul Felder that night. Since Iaquinta didn't make 155-pounds on the dot, he was ineligible to win the newly-vacated undisputed crown.
Wow. That was exhausting just to revisit.
And that brings us to arguably the most ridiculous of them all, but undeniably the most unpredictable. The fifth and most recent time – April 18, 2020, at UFC 249.
The pair were set to headline the event with Nurmagomedov as the now undisputed king and Ferguson the rightful challenger. Both men were riding unbeaten streaks of 12 successive wins in the UFC.
This time, neither man was injured, and there were no weight cut issues. Instead, the fight was nixed by something completely unforeseen – a worldwide pandemic.
The COVID-19 outbreak put the sports world on hold and continues to this day as the world went into virtual lockdown in a bid to stem the spread of the virus.
Due to travel restrictions, public gathering bans, and state lockdowns, Nurmagomedov is now in Russia and unable to make it to the unknown location where the UFC is attempting to stage UFC 249.
Although he still wanted to fight if possible and if he could make it, UFC president Dana White changed plans late and Nurmagomedov was ruled out of the event. Instead, we'll get Ferguson against the next contender in line, Justin Gaethje, in an interim title contest.
Maybe it will just be another stepping stone for "El Cucuy", or maybe this will be the final straw, whether or not Gaethje can take him out.
