Tony Ferguson: Paths to victory at UFC 249
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Our initial reads and ‘Paths to victory’ for Justin Gaethje might make it seem like we’re all out on Tony Ferguson chance’s of winning.
But we decided to try and come up with some positives for him anyway.
Ed Gallo: How can Tony win? I guess he could kick Gaethje's body and shoot straights through his high guard. But like, his legs are gonna get chewed up and I don't think of him highly enough in terms of footwork/ringcraft to not get blasted in the pocket or on a counter.
Maybe he hand-fights super diligently every time they're in close quarters and plays an elbow game. It kinda worked for Urijah Faber vs. Mike Brown, who was using a high guard.
Sriram Muralidaran: Can see body kicking working well, if Tony can get away with it; I’d need to see him link his jab with his kicks better than he has in the past, to draw up Gaethje’s hands into the high guard before kicking underneath it. Tony’s jab is an asset for him here if he can get away with it, even though there’s a solid chance he doesn’t; at the very least, it’s a way to put Gaethje into a high guard, and maybe get him into catch-and-pitch mode to fluster him with sheer variety. That variety is what he needs, in lieu of the pocket-boxing depth that Alvarez and Poirier brought; where those guys could counter-jab and work in long and smart combinations, Ferguson’s broader skillset (the kicks and the elbows) could enable him to mix up rhythm and plane of attack in a similar (if less safe) way. For that to be viable, though, Tony’s jab needs to be sharper than ever, more Vartanyan in the second Abdulvakhabov fight than the first.
The biggest thing in favor of Ferguson might be the circumstance of the fight, and that’s what he’d be smart to exploit. Ferguson hasn’t wrestled in a long while and it’s fairly unlikely he keeps Gaethje down, but as a way to keep a relentless scrambler draining a short-camp gas tank, it could definitely do. As always, Ferguson needs a tired opponent late into the fight, and that might be the most high-percentage path; Gaethje weaponizes his cardio as well as anyone, but his easiest path here is early, and the first round is largely where the landmine lies for El Cucuy. It isn’t a good strategy in isolation to gamble on a bigger gas tank, but in a matchup as bad as Gaethje could be, it might be the one that Tony is smart to try.
Kyle McLachlan: I am trying to think of another fighter who has been as hurt as Ferg has in recent fights but continued to win. The thinking of course is now he’s taking on a truly world class 155lber--having fought past-prime opponents in his last few fights and even having been hurt by late replacement Lando Vannata back in 2016--will spark Ferguson out.
Certainly Ferguson has shown signs of slipping for the past four years but there are outliers (the excellent performance over a near-prime Rafael dos Anjos for instance) and despite having to come through rocky moments himself--such as being hurt or a torrid first round against Kevin Lee--to brutalise pretty much everyone he’s fought.
So, who is the closest boxer I can think of, who to contemporary eyes might have been considered ready for the wood chipper when actually still in his prime?
Certainly, legendary light heavyweight champ Matthew Saad Muhammad was in war after war, hurt by bangers and average punchers alike. So is Ferguson in fact capable of absorbing what Gaethje can dish out and clawing it back as he did against Anthony Pettis? Let’s not forget that Eddie Alvarez appeared to be post-prime after Bellator, lost to Donald Cerrone, clawed some of his prime back by dispatching RDA, then got annihilated by Conor McGregor, only to survive everything Gaethje threw at him to stop him in the third round. Is it really that inconceivable that Ferguson can’t do the same?
What does everyone else think? Is Tony a knockout waiting to happen, or is this just who he is? A blood ’n’ guts action fighter?
Lukasz Fenrych: The first thing Tony needs to do to win is survive the first round. If that seems obvious, well, you’re not wrong, but there is almost no chance that the first round will be anything other than a hellacious beating from the side of Gaethje. Tony just doesn’t start fights quickly- he takes a while to take his defensive reads and he takes them with his face. So a lot depends both on how his durability looks after his time out of the cage, and on whether he can avoid at least leaning straight into Gaethje’s fire.
If he can do that, his chances increase dramatically. The one thing about Gaethje is that for all his aura of inevitability, his gas tank isn’t unending. His most ferocious performances have tended to leave him victorious, but almost falling over with exhaustion even if they didn’t go past two rounds; others have seen him modulate his pace more. The problem may come in the fact that Tony’s pace, typically, does not drop as the fight goes on, and in fact only increases.
The second part of this gameplan involves using his reach advantage two ways. First, although it’s not his favourite way to operate, Ferguson can fight on the back foot and draw opponents onto things, and having six inches on a fighter who tends to want to be quite close when he fires anyway will help, so he should do that and paint Gaethje as often as possible from beyond his striking range. Secondly, if he can then force him to pause his pressure, Gaethje on the rare occasions he’s seen on the backfoot has looked hapless, not really knowing what to do with his guard or how to set his feet to launch his counters, so pushing him back and then hitting him without getting himself into Gaethje’s range is likely to see some success.
Danny Martin: Tony needs to draw Gaethje’s guard up and slice his ribs to pieces. In his defense, he has a few of doing this. His long jab and angular left hook should be good distance-managing weapons and if he can draw up Justin’s high guard, snap kicks to the body should be there all day. I don’t know how much Tony wants to kick with Gaethje, at least without setting them up, because Gaethje should be looking to counterkick Ferguson’s wonky stance at every turn.
The reference point I’d give here is Gaethje’s fight with James Vick, who briefly had success in the center of the cage with long, round kicks up high and punching off the kicks. Switching body-head should be in Ferguson’s interests, and there is a decent chance for indecipherable offense to just simply shell Justin up. There are opportunities for Ferguson to get some work in.
My fear is just in his trajectory. He is already 36 and seems closer to a knockout than ever. His performance against Cerrone was dreadful, and I’ve been feeling that any sort of powerful puncher has a damn good shot at just laying Ferguson out at this point. If Justin Gaethje lands on Tony the same way Cerrone did, it’s hard to not see him going out once and for all.
Mateusz Fenrych: Rarely has a route to victory been couched in such a big ‘if’ factor. The first round, as already mentioned by my colleagues, is that ‘if’.
Now, I hesitate to say it, but Gaethje’s famed pressure might be a tad overstated at this point; both Poirier and Alvarez managed to make Gaethje take steps back, or at least halted his pressure, and he took serious damage in that time. What it took to do that though was a serious dedication to a systemic plan, not exactly something Ferguson is renowned for.
However, Ferguson has some tools that will come in handy. He has a reach advantage on Gaethje, and is capable of fighting long.
His snap kick to the body has to be his initial attacking gambit, as a tool for maintaining some distance, staving off pressure and draining Gaethje’s not-unlimited gas-tank, it’ll be invaluable.
Ferguson has nice long strikes he can use, too; while his guard is very suspect when jabbing, it’s consistent and long from range, and has every chance of damaging Gaethje if Ferguson maintains it.
In close is where Ferguson will have the trickier task; Geathje’s leg kicks and clinch offense are brutal, and are the danger area for Ferguson. His inside defence is very permeable, and he is very open to leg-kicks, as seen in the Pettis fight.
However, Ferguson’s signature weapons, his elbows, will come in very handy in close. Both when entering the pocket, and slashing elbows over a guard have proven very effective at cutting opponents up and dissuading attacks. His spinning elbows might well land him in trouble, but it seems foolhardy to expect him not to try them at this point.
Kyle: It strikes me that it’s hard to find a route for a Ferguson win via conventional analysis. It just seems to be toughness + late-round violence = Ferguson’s best chance of winning.
Tommy Elliott: I can’t add much to the technical analysis already given, but I will add that a big unknown for me is how Justin’s recent embrace of back foot countering against Cerrone might play into the dynamic of this fight. That was a new wrinkle in his game, and while it worked very well against Cowboy it’s the opposite of what he needs against a guy like Tony who gains momentum like a snowball rolling downhill against anyone willing to let him lead. If Justin has made the mistake of changing his mental image of himself as a fighter from pressure guy to counter striker he could let Tony off the hook in terms of his habit of starting very slowly. And if Tony can survive the early rounds unscathed I expect he’ll still be plenty dangerous enough late to win the decision.
Philippe Pocholle-Marchetti : He has ways to win. It would be insane to say he doesn’t. Have you seen the face of his opponents after fights with him? ‘El Cucuy’ is a bad man. I have always said that Tony’s mental toughness and self belief make him almost impossible to break down. He’s above it. If there’s one man to get whooped all fight long and win at the last second by one crazy choke, that’s him. In the past when Justin got tired he became real sloppy and if this happens, Tony will choke that man out or just outlast him and capitalize on his mistakes (due to fatigue). So Tony needs to survive the early storm (like he did in every fight so far) before overwhelming Justin. Also, the fight could be stopped from a bad cut over Gaethje’s hairline or above the eye as he tends to lean forward a lot and take shots on the forehead. He may be slower but Tony’s elbows are still one the most fearful weapons in MMA.