Michael Chiesa was supposed to fight Tony Ferguson at UFC Fight Night 91, but had to pull out of the fight due to injury.
The lightweight fighter is now calling out Ferguson to fight him now that he’s healthy, but Ferguson has turned down the fight and Chiesa believes that makes him a hypocrite.
“Well, I mean, it’s kind of hypocritical, he’s pulled out of a fight before and what did he do? He tried to go back and get the rematch with Khabib,” Chiesa said on The MMA Hour. “I don’t see why it would be out of the realm of possibilities for me to do the same thing. I had a ruptured disk, I wasn’t sick at the hospital with the flu or whatever he had, I had a disk bulging out of my spine, and that’s a real big difference, but, you know, if he doesn’t want it, than whatever. What’s with these that are ranked higher than me asking for fights with guys that are lower [ranked] than me? It doesn’t make any sense. I understand Nate is a money fight at this point, he’s a pay-per-view draw, but Tony, you’re not a pay-per-view draw, Nate is not going to fight you, so let’s run it back. I’m not speaking illogically, all the match ups that I ask for make sense. Big deal, I ruptured a disk, I rehabbed, and now I’m back.”
Tony Ferguson wound up defeating late replacement Lando Vanatta that night at UFC Fight Night 91.
Chiesa says that the fact that both of them are on a winning streak is a good reason to put the fight together.
“To me, it makes sense,” Chiesa explained. “I’m on a win streak, we were supposed to fight, there is some history, so let’s run it back. You can’t just sit there and say that I pulled out of a fight, like, I wasn’t ducking you, bro. I couldn’t walk for almost two weeks, I couldn’t get out of my couch. You [Ferguson] were laying in the hospital with some flu, come on, man, just shut up and fight. Nate is not going to fight you, Nate is going to fight the trilogy with Conor McGregor, and he deserves that. He’s a money fight now, Nate is a badass fighter, but it’s just never going to happen. It’s kinda hipocritical for him to say those kind of things. We have a story line, we were supposed to fight, it was supposed to be a main event, so let’s up the steaks, let’s put 12 pounds of gold on the line. You want to be champion? Maybe you should go through me.”
“Maverick” hasn’t fought since defeating Beneil Dariush by submission at UFC On Fox 19 in April 2016.
