At one point in time, Khabib Nurmagomedov versus Tony Ferguson was right at the top of every MMA fan’s bucket list for fights they wanted to see.
Despite the two men undergoing multiple training camps and fights weeks in preparation for one another, it never did materialize during their careers.
With Nurmagomedov retiring in 2020, history has been much kinder to him as he walked away from the sport with his undefeated record intact.
Ferguson at his peak was able to match the lightweight winning streak of “The Eagle” but he now finds himself holding the UFC record for the most consecutive losses.
That being said, it can’t be forgotten just how desirable this fight was when both men were beating everyone else at 155 pounds.
Michael Chiesa Says 2016 Tony Ferguson Could Have Beaten Khabib Nurmagomedov
In a recent interview with BJPenn.com, Michael Chiesa spoke about how he prepared to face Ferguson at the recent UFC Fight Night event in Abu Dhabi.
He revealed how rather than watching his opponent’s latest outings, he went back to watching the very best of the former interim lightweight champion in order to make sure that he was training to fight Ferguson at full force.
Chiesa would go on to win the fight via a submission but watching footage on his opponent only made him appreciate the winning run that he went on between 2013-2019, even more.
He said that in one of the biggest “what ifs” in MMA history, he believes that the 2016 version of “El Cucuy” in particular had a strong chance of handing Nurmagomedov his first and only loss if they had met inside the Octagon 8 years ago.
“I will admit like going back and watching some of his recent fights, I wouldn’t say gave me a false sense of security but I was definitely like this isn’t the film to watch, I’m going to go back and watch the film that I was watching to prepare for him in 2016. I watched that Rafael Dos Anjos fight a lot because I feel like that version of Tony Ferguson that we saw in the Octagon against Rafael Dos Anjos, I feel like he could have beat anybody in the world. I mean, I will go out on a limb and say I think that he could have beaten Khabib Nurmagomedov if that was the version of him. I think that was his peak. The peak was RDA and even though he still won fights from there, I still think it started to go down a little bit.”
