Tony Ferguson simply feels like he is embarking on a new path along a pick your own adventure journey and doesn't necessarily see his boxing debut as some form of side quest. The former interim UFC lightweight champion will clash with Salt Papi under Queensberry Rules this weekend at Misfits Boxing 22.
During a recent interview with Damon Martin of MMA Fighting ahead of this MFB interim title bid, Ferguson covered several subjects ahead of his fight on Saturday. When touching upon how he perceives this shift in combat sports as he forgoes the four ounce gloves and looks to enter the sweet science world, Ferguson said,
"I don't have side quests anymore. This is a brand new [expletive] game. It's a new game. I'm not looking for the cheat codes. I'm not looking for anything else. I'm not even looking for the walkthroughs. There's no walkthroughs in this [expletive]. This is interesting to me. It's like kind of like taking care of the case, putting it back and making sure that it's like, 'Oh man, I can't wait.' You're dusting off your controller."
"You're getting all your snacks. You're getting all your drinks. You're getting ready for everything. And you're putting it there and everything's going to be [expletive] awesome because your preparation is going to be awesome when it goes into it. You're going to put in the work and you're going to get exactly what you got on fighting night."
Tony Ferguson fires off on those who thinks he should retire
Tony Ferguson clearly does not have much bandwidth allocated towards critics and recently mentioned that for those who keep compelling him to hang up the gloves. The 41-year-old combatant is riding an eight fight losing skid into this next bout but seems quite confident heading into this Misfits Boxing interim middleweight title clash.
Discussing some of his detractors in that aforementioned MMA Fighting interview, Ferguson stated [via BJPenn.com],
“I don’t give a f**k what anybody thinks about me. ‘[Is] Tony Ferguson in his prime?’ I don’t give a f**k. The interest is there right now. It doesn’t matter who the f**ck is going to step in front of me. You could put anybody in front of me come that night. I’m going to go in there and give the best possible version of myself that I possibly can because I’m uncomfortable in practice right now."
"The last four to five years, I’ve been comfortable in practice. I’ve been miserable in the fight because I just didn’t want to f**king do it. I’m uncomfortable in practice right now, getting rounds and making myself feel that way so that way when I get inside that ring, I’m going to be comfortable as f**k.”