Michael Bisping believes interim lightweight champion Tony Ferguson will be a true challenge for Conor McGregor.
At UFC 216, Ferguson captured interim gold by submitting Kevin Lee inside the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. After the bout, Ferguson called McGregor a “f*cking piece of sh*t” and told him to defend his title or vacate it.
During a recent edition of his “Believe You Me” podcast, Bisping said Ferguson is the more challenging fight over a third bout with Nate Diaz (via MMAFighting.com):
“For sure [Ferguson is a tougher fight than Diaz]. The problem is for Tony Ferguson is that he does get hit. We saw that against Kevin Lee, he had his chin up in the air a few times and Kevin Lee exposed that. Conor, love him or hate him, the guy can fight and he can strike and he can box. We saw that against Mayweather and if Kevin Lee connected with [Ferguson], sure as hell Conor will connect as well.”
The middleweight champion then said McGregor’s gas tank could be his downfall.
“The problem that Conor has is the same problem that Kevin has, his gas tank isn’t the best. That’s not me being negative, it’s just that history has shown that. But Tony can weather the storm. Can he weather the storm in the way that Nate Diaz did? Can he take those shots? I guess we’ve got to see the fight to find out but it’s certainly an interesting match-up and you can make a lot of cases for both guys to win.”
