Ferguson v. Pettis

Making his professional debut in 2008, Tony “El Cucuy” Ferguson is now one of the most accomplished and prolific fighters in the UFC lightweight division. Currently riding an 11-fight win streak after his loss to Michael Johnson in 2012, Ferguson has integrated various techniques and improvements to his already strange and different style.

On June 8th, 2019 at UFC 238, he looks to fight Donal Cerrone and extend his win streak to twelve, however, injuries and a recent mental health fright have sidelined Ferguson forcing him to only have fought once in 2017 and 2018. A win for Ferguson on June 8th will most likely have him once again the challenger for the lightweight title. While Ferguson once held the interim title after his win over Kevin Lee in 2017, it was quickly stripped from him in favor of the McGregor, Khabib show.

If Ferguson wins this fight with Cerrone, we may be looking at the fifth attempt at booking Khabib versus Tony and with McGregor finally at a distance from the sport, one can hope that this fight materializes.

In this article, we will go from his most recent loss to Michael Johnson, to his destruction of Pettis and study some of his strengths and weaknesses. While Ferguson has some obvious flaws I hope to bring to light some of his better traits. For now, let us study the language of Tony Ferguson starting from A to Z.

Salsa real smooth

Recent Ferguson fights have been defined by his smooth and relaxed take on the fight game. He is able to comfortably move in and out of range, constantly forcing his opponent to play catch up to his game and his rhythm. As much as this analysis is subjective, the most subjective portion of what makes Ferguson great is his rhythm.

Ferguson fights out of both the southpaw and orthodox stance, constantly stepping forwards or backward in salsa dance. Not kidding, this is what allows Ferguson to get into his grove and work his strikes into this back and forth.

From orthodox to southpaw constantly

What this footwork allows for Ferguson to do is create feints, set up strikes, and create space or close in space. By doing this Ferguson confuses his opponent and reduces the likelihood of his man throwing strikes at him.

In this Johnson fight (his most recent loss), Ferguson did not possess this footwork but instead had the inkling of it. Choosing mostly to either plod forward or run straight forwards onto a Johnson punch.

Plodding

Swimmer-esque punches

This footwork is correct, in fact, a majority if not all gyms would teach the front foot first then back foot second footwork. However, this kind of footwork does not lend well to Ferguson’s rhythm and striking style. Throughout the Johnson fight, Ferguson would try to throw strikes without the footwork to carry him into the distance he desired. For Ferguson, he either lead rushing in with punches or threw kicks from a distance with no real way of combining it with his punches.

Running into his punches and getting clocked doing so

Naked kicks got countered repeatedly, a constant in Ferguson’s career

Ferguson had no real way to shut down Johnson’s hands and no real footwork to set up his kicks to stop Johnson’s circular movement, which in turn forced Ferguson to run forward and get countered. From each clip, we see Ferguson hang out in Johnson’s preferred range of boxing, which was a field day for Johnson’s minimalist striking.

Kangaroo Boxing

Another tendency of Ferguson is kangaroo boxing, a term used to describe a fighter sticking their head clean into the sky when striking or when avoiding a strike. Tony Ferguson is one of the most egregious examples of poor head positioning either when striking or defending. This poor head placement makes his life incredibly difficult and has continually got him dropped by technical strikers.

However, in recent iterations of Ferguson, the head placement has become less of a burden and more of a strength as it raising his head increases the length of the punches thrown towards him. Thus, opponents are forced to over-extend due to this change in distance.

Notice RDA has to step multiple times to even get close to Ferguson’s head

Head no longer stationary

By adding this rocking movement we saw earlier, Ferguson was able to slip, duck, and weave around Dos Anjo’s punches, forcing him into overcommitment. The Ferguson that fought Johnson did not have the preventative head movement that he does now and simply ate punches to the face.

Ferguson’s rhythm is unique in that his rocking allows him to move into the distance to attack and stay in the same distance to avoid strikes. Of course, his hands down style has inherent dangers, however for a fighter than enjoys this rocking movement it works for Ferguson.

He experimented with the traditional hands up method against Danny Castillo, and he only got hit more as a result. While Ferguson came strong with combinations, ultimately raising your hands up to purely guard, invites more strikes to be thrown at you. Furthermore, putting his guard up prevented Ferguson to bring forth his offense.

Just waiting to be hit

Death by a thousand stabs

It is no secret that the name of Ferguson’s game has always been offense, overwhelming offense. Punching and kicking were becoming less effective, Ferguson needed to evolve.

For whatever reason, Ferguson seems uncomfortable bending at his knees to throw body shots. Thus Ferguson was primarily a headhunter and his following fights with Trujillo, Kikuno, Tibau, and Castillo was won on his incredible endurance and constant forward punching.

Against Trujillo, Ferguson repeatedly ran at Trujillo and threw low kicks, slowing him down. But in return, Trujillo was able to land big bombs at Ferguson’s sky-high head, dropping him in round 1 and subsequently making his night incredibly difficult.

Running low kick 1: Fail. Running low kick 2? Worse.

Ferguson needed to figure out a way to exhaust his man without expending his chin as a resource. Thus, after finishing Tibau, Ferguson finally put it all together in his fight with Josh Thomson.

The Thomson fight is the coming out party of the current iteration of Tony Ferguson, while he has made steady improvements, he was never this complete on the feet and on the ground until this very fight.

Straight from the start, Ferguson brought a new weapon to the table: the snap kick.

Notice the distance Thomson is shot back after every kick

The snap kick is an incredibly fast and efficient way for a fighter back his/her opponent up, or to drain their gas tank. If they block the shot, they are pushed back into the fence. If they take it to their gut, they were winded and are forced to retreat. The motion for the strike looks the same as a low kick or a round kick thus difficult to discern from which angle it may come from.

Notice how Thomson cannot discern between either strike

Adding to this, Ferguson’s absolute delight to rock his upper body and shuffle his legs, it created the perfect storm of illusion.

Snap kick into running low kick, into an exchange of punches

Notice Ferguson is always able to throw first as a result of this illusion

This tactic forced Thomson to run back to avoid being hit and when he stood still Ferguson was able to light him up with punches from range before leaving the range himself with a step back. By adding this new tool Ferguson was able to run straight at Thomson without regard for a serious strike because his leg was always going to hit his opponent before the rest of his body did.

However, doing just purely this would eventually sell out Ferguson’s timing and get him caught out. So Ferguson added one more weapon to his arsenal: the elbow.

Notice how Ferguson traps Thomson’s hands, making it seem like he can’t punch

Whenever Ferguson felt that Thomson was going to catch or punch at him during his running start. He would instead step in with a powerful elbow, which dropped Thomson and caused panic. Ferguson has always been a handsy fighter, preferring to touch his opponent's gloves, grab the head, or simply throw his hands out in their direction. By pulling Thomson’s hands into his chest, Ferguson was able to turn it over into an elbow, cutting up Thomson’s face.

Touch and slash

Ferguson does the same thing to his next opponent Barboza

By having a constant threat of the elbows, present it forces his opponents to start pulling their hands away from Ferguson’s grip and not guarding his punches.

Notice RDA’s hesitation before his one strike

Pettis also cannot throw a strike in fear of being hit

The coup de grâce

Throughout this article I have mentioned that Ferguson loves to punch, his favorite combination is the long one-two or the single jab. His jab is lovely, frequent, and punishing, allowing Ferguson to set up his harder hitting strikes.

Against the elusive Lando Vannata, Ferguson was constantly missing with big shots because Vannata was able to weave underneath his strikes.

Just some groovy weaving

To stop his weaving, Ferguson would throw more kicks to the body and attempt his famous D’arce choke forcing Vannata to realize that ducking his head down would get him finished.

Ferguson threatening a headlock and possible D’arce later

Notice that Lando has to stand still and block every single kick

However, whenever Vannata came up out of his weave or stood to defend kicks, Ferguson was able to crack and sting him with his jab.

Lando cannot slip Ferguson’s jab when he only has one leg in the air

Straight out of a weave, and into a jab

But what Ferguson truly wants from his striking, is his hardest hitting punch. The slip and rip. While this technique is not unique to Ferguson and plenty of fighters can perform this, Ferguson seems to constantly find it whenever he gets into punching exchanges. This takes advantage of his long frame and height, forcing his opponents into overextending and getting clocked by it.

Kikuno learned the hard way

By understanding that this is the strike was Ferguson purely wants, you can start to see why his head placement, footwork, and kicks. These weapons are entirely made to create a sense of distance disparity between Ferguson and his opponents, forcing them to run into his slip and rip.

Against Lee, Ferguson would step his front foot back to land this counter.

Ferguson switches into another stance to land this counter

Slips the right, counters with a hook

Kicks into his punch, while creating distance from Lee’s punch with his head

Ferguson is able to catch his opponents off guard as a result of his constant poking and prodding with kicks and jabs. Furthermore, by constantly coming forward with constant aggression is requires fighters to throw back or become overwhelmed with the volume striking.

Ferguson’s most recent fight against Pettis is the shining example of Tony Ferguson pressure. He broke Pettis down by putting him up against the fence through snap kicks and low kicks. He beat him up with punches and cut Pettis up with elbows. This was all done because Ferguson’s salsa footwork allows him to constantly rock away and throw his hands in hopes of countering.

Always looking to slip and counter Pettis’ punches

When Pettis put up his guard to block the punches, he was cut open by the elbows.

Notice the hands of Ferguson always pulling at Pettis’ guard

Pettis would spend his time on the fence, playing catch up to Ferguson’s striking which meant he was a glorified punching bag in these exchanges.

Pettis just did not know when to defend or attack

The beating pt.2

Conclusion

Ferguson has always been a purely offensive fighter, he seems to care very little for his own safety and the punches that might just knock him out. We discussed earlier that Ferguson’s poor head placement often gets him clocked on the chin when he is punching. He also seems to get knocked down in every fight of his, only for him to rally back in the same round and truly start his engines.

Whether Donald Cerrone is able to exploit Ferguson’s weaknesses is questionable, however, we can assume that Ferguson will follow the same gameplan he employed against Pettis. But without a shadow of a doubt, I think that Ferguson and Cerrone will put on one of the most exciting fights of the year this weekend, and I am extremely excited.

Right now, I leave you with the striking language of Tony Ferguson, maybe one day I will examine his ground game as well. But for now, this was the alphabet of Tony Ferguson, from A to Z.