Tony Ferguson was fired up talking about UFC 249 on Thursday.

New opponent. New location. Weight on point. Preaching about his tight circle and his family. Motivated as always, coronavirus pandemic be damned.

“Mental’s OK, not too bad. Opponent switch was something different, but I’ve been surrounding myself with the same people. You know that,” Ferguson said in a phone interview. “Nothing’s changed. Family’s good, man. Everything’s good.”

It was a vintage Ferguson interview. He wasn’t afraid of catching COVID-19. More like COVID-19 was afraid of catching a case of “El Cucuy.”

“We’re gonna quarantine that thing,” he said.

Then about 19 minutes into the interview, the phone alerts showed up shortly after 3 p.m.: UFC President Dana White, after weeks of speculation and criticism, was finally calling off UFC 249, he told ESPN’s Brett Okamoto.

White added that all other UFC events were postponed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Today, we got a call from the highest level you can go at Disney, and the highest level at ESPN … and the powers that be there asked me to stand down and not do this event on Saturday,” White told ESPN, which has a five-year deal with the MMA promotion.

When told of the cancellation of his April 18 fight, Ferguson, 36, was understandably shocked. The first words out of his mouth was an expletive, followed by “Oh wow.”

After nine seconds of silence and another expletive, the Costa Mesa lightweight composed himself: “Ohhhhh well. I’m still gonna train.”

UFC 249 had already been beset by a multitude of twists and turns. Ferguson’s opponent, undefeated lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, was removed from the main event because he’d be unable to leave his native Dagestan and travel to the U.S.

The event, scheduled for Barclays Center in Brooklyn, was now going to be at Tachi Palace Casino Resort on an Indian reservation in Lemoore, just outside Fresno.

Now Ferguson was going to be fighting Justin Gaethje for the interim lightweight title – a championship Ferguson had already won once before.

And of course, there was the elephant in the middle of the Octagon: The UFC plowing ahead with the pay-per-view amid a global pandemic.

None of that had fazed Ferguson. And now it’s all gone.

“Ummmm … you know what? I’m sure it’s for a good reason. Let’s be real. I gotta keep the faith,” Ferguson said. “I gotta keep this … (expletive) … keep this small circle close, bro, and just keep focusing on what we can control, which is our heart rate and our breathing.”

Once one of the UFC’s most active fighters, Ferguson has fought just four times in the past three-and-a-half years. He was coming off a slice-and-dice job on Donald Cerrone at UFC 238 in June when Cerrone’s eye swelled shut and the ringside physician halted the fight.

That ran his record to 15-1 in the UFC since he debuted in 2011. And Ferguson said he’s not going to stop training and fighting.

“Dude, I’m just gonna keep collecting trophies and doing my same shit,” Ferguson said before pausing and getting emotional. “Every single time I wake up in the morning, when I do my work, say my prayers and I do (stuff), I hug my little boy … whew … kiss my wife. I just … keep doing what I’m doing. What am I gonna do?”

Ferguson said he was going to reach out to White to thank him for going to great lengths to try to keep UFC 249 alive. He also said he was going to suggest playing Gaethje in a UFC video game.

Anything, Ferguson said, to keep the ball rolling, get through this and come back stronger.

“The constant is things are always gonna change. The variable is how am I gonna react to it?” Ferguson said. “So we could throw that variable, baby, and we make that the constant. Which is why I’m gonna keep smiling, I’m gonna keep training, and you know what? I’m gonna put on some muscle. Dude, I’m skinny. I’m gonna put on some muscle.

“I’m gonna try my best. I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna try my best. If I fall, I’ll get back up.”