Five times the Ultimate Fighting Championship has booked a fight between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson, and each time the bout has fallen through.
While a litany of injuries — most notably one that resulted from Ferguson tripping on a television production wire — sabotaged the majority of those proposed bouts, a global pandemic caused the cancellation of their recently scheduled clash at UFC 249. With Nurmagomedov currently stranded in Russia due to travel restrictions designed to combat the COVID-19 outbreak, Ferguson is now slated to square off against Justin Gaethje in the headliner of a revamped UFC 249 card in Jacksonville, Florida, on May 9.