The saga of Tony Ferguson and Khabib Nurmagomedov may have had more false starts than any fight in recent MMA history, but if one thing is obvious after Wednesday’s UFC 223 conference call, it’s this: Even after all these years, there is certainly no love lost between the two lightweight rivals.
What was supposed to be a customary pre-fight media call ahead of the April 7 pay-per-view ultimately turned into an hour-long dispute between Ferguson and Nurmagomedov. Even with UFC 223’s co-headliners Rose Namajunas and Joanna Jedrzejczyk on the line, the UFC’s reigning interim lightweight champion and his undefeated Dagestani counterpart effectively monopolized the conversation, waging war on one another from the very first question and incessantly interrupting one another in a chaotic affair.