Conor McGregor may be the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) lightweight title holder, but Edson Barboza doesn’t see it that way.
Barboza is set to compete tomorrow night (March 11) inside the Centro de Formacao Olimpica do Nordeste in Fortaleza, Brazil. He’ll go head-to-head with Beneil Dariush. Barboza would like to keep his fifth spot on the UFC lightweight rankings intact, while Dariush is looking to move up from his ninth position.
The lightweight division is considered to be stacked, but uncertainty looms. McGregor is out until his baby is born. As a result, an interim lightweight title match-up was made between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson. Nurmagomedov was forced out of the bout due to weight cutting issues.
During an interview with MMAFighting.com, Barboza said he’d like to have a rematch with Ferguson. This time, for the interim gold (via MMAMania.com):
“I feel that’s gonna be a perfect fight, you know? Me against Ferguson for the interim belt. I think that’s the fight that makes sense for me after this one. Most important, I get a full camp, cause I said yes for the fight with him (on) short notice, just four weeks (to) train. I was in Brazil, you know? Just a full-time camp, and I hope, not an illegal upkick, you know?”
Barboza feels if he gets past Dariush and if he were to fight Ferguson for the interim title, he’d consider the winner of that bout to be the real 155-pound champion.
“Yeah, I think so, because, man, I have more than ten fights in this division, more than fifteen. Ferguson have more than ten fights, Khabib have more than ten fights. Conor, I think, has just one fight in the division, and he’s the champ. That really don’t make sense for me. I really don’t care about Conor. I think he’s not a true champ. I think the champ’s gonna be me, or Khabib, or Ferguson.”
