What happens if Max Holloway fights Tony Ferguson

Author:

Chael Sonnen

Keywords:

MMA,mixed martial arts,Chael Sonnen,UFC,Ultimate Fighting Championships,MMA Fights,MMA podcast,Beyond the Fight,Chael Sonnen podcast,mma fights,Bad Guy Inc,Nate Diaz,dustin poirier,Conor McGregor,Khabib Nurmagomedov,Tony Ferguson,Max Holloway,UFC lightweight Champion,UFC featherweight Champion,brian ortega vs max holloway,brian ortega,Fight promotion,Dana White,Kevin Lee,Eddie Alvarez,ufc news,Daniel Cormier,Ariel Helwani,Francis Ngannou

Subtitles:

rumored fight that I happen to believe to be true is max Holloway versus Tony Ferguson but there's a lot on this I'm not sure where to start with unpacking it I mean right off the bat you look at it go oh yeah I want to see that fight right here's the thing with these guys if you're going to have somebody that you think can beat max Holloway you're gonna bring out the punches and the kicks and the wrestling and you're going to be wrong the thing that you have to make sure that the opponent has if he's gonna have any chance to beat max is a gas tank can he hold up for 25 minutes because max is one of the very few guys to the history of the sport who has weaponized pace and it is the greatest weapon you can bring into an ass-whipping contest so if you want somebody to go across from him and beat him you have to be able to make sure you can check that box let's look at Tony Ferguson if you want somebody to beat Tony Ferguson before you talk about the punches and the kicks and the grapple and the submission you have to make sure that they can hold up for 25 minutes because Tony Ferguson is one of the few guys in the history of this sport to weaponize pace and he will go all goddamn day and it is intimidating and it buckles guy and they both bring it to the table so now we can have a conversation on who's going to win before you look at that fight though you have to Lou there's a lot of lessons here's guys let me go through this real quick the bigger storyline what is going to happen with Matt all of us are a little tired of people leaving divisions behind myself too I love the parody and I love that somebody can go up I love the champ champ thing I love the champ champ champ thing I love grabbing as much hardware as you possibly can have that's your goal and you've only got an X amount of window to do it I love it I will also acknowledge that to put everybody else in the locker room with similar goals and dreams and just as much work ethic and sacrifice on hold of their ultimate aspiration is unfair so what do you do and what are you gonna do in this case max going up to 155 jumping right in the mix against Tony does he do that belt in tow if he's officially becoming a 155 powder and he's going on a run does he give up his belt because that in many ways would be unprecedented if he was to go up for a fight that was not for a belt I would feel terrible for if this is what he's elected to do I'd be happy for him if they want to make an intern championship don't forget the current champion is out and not only is he out and stuck in detention he's not publicly saying I'm not even coming back when that detentions up I'm sitting even longer okay well we got to take you at your word at some point we got to get on with it you're gonna tell me we're gonna get Tony and Max and you're gonna tell me they're gonna have to go out there for 25 minutes I think I'm right to then tell you that some piece of hardware has to be up on the line that has not been discussed I am NOT reporting to you that that is for an intern championship of any kind but if you're going to take Max's belt away and I don't know that they are if they are you either have to give them a title opportunity or you have to sit him down and in no uncertain terms promise that the winner of this fight fights for the belt next that seems like a hard promise to me for me that seems like a harder promise to make because you have so many great options at 155 so so many all of a sudden a like winner just doesn't exist you try to tell me that all please Kevin Lee doesn't matter because he's coming off a loss to Iowa La Quinta oh please please I'll lose respect for you if you try to tell me that you try to have this whole discussion I only talk about Connor and khabib try to have this whole discussion and slip in Nate Diaz and you don't ever bring up Dustin Poirier please you and I are done talking MMA because I just lost respect for you the other side of this equation let's take a look at the facts that it is going to be max in khabib I apologize Tony Poirier who has been the odd man out and who has been slighted who has been given great opportunities made the most of them and I'm talking about working up his way up the card I'm talking about main slot then I'm talking about co-main event slot then I'm talking about headlining spot he was given a very big fight with ideas it was to be at Madison Square Garden so the company did attempt to make right with Poirier somewhere Poirier got injured the fight didn't happen that doesn't mean he gets punished and kicked to the curb I'm just adding that for the story the company to try to make right and he was going to get the recognition he needed now he's back though and he deserves to be in the mix and he deserves to be in the conversation but when Max and Tony got rumoured Poirier weighed in on social media and said you know you might as well just release me if all the big fights are gonna go to these other guys you might as well just release me I see where that frustration comes and I take no pleasure in it he is as tough as an old leather boot he came up the slow and the long way and if you ever meet him he's as nice of a guys you're gonna come across and that I can't say that many times in this sport there's a lot of jerks out there but Dustin Poirier in one of them and I would love for something good to happen to him I must tell you politely and humbly a correction that needs to be made okay Max had just beat Ortega to give you guys the time line when he beat Ortega he stopped him on his feet in the fourth round and it was so bad the referee had to step in there it was a rare kind of a beating from a rare kind of a pace from a rare kind of fighter and it caught everybody's attention within a week of that Tony Ferguson and max Holloway and I can't remember when what order but they got into it out of nowhere somewhere on social media and Dana White even weighed in to say I love it I'm just telling you the story and if that may frustrate you that social media can steer a guy's career then you're looking at this wrong because I could give you twenty more stories off the top of my head in the last thirty days without even looking at the phone to tell you where it did so instead of being frustrated by it you need to observe this and you need to copy it there are two approaches here as politely as I can be to somebody I respect tremendously in Dustin Poirier but there are two approaches one is to do everything right and then sit by your phone the other one is to pick up your phone and pick a fight and you can look at Max and Tony who figured this out themselves and Dana was the last to the table but they got their way or you could go back a little further to Connor versus Mayweather where Dana White was the last one to the table but he liked it and they got their way or I could tell you the 20 other times in between where two fighters put it together on their own took it to the public the public said yes and Dana White signed off I want you all to be successful in the sport to understand how to be successful is tricky and the landscape changes fast to not even be able to imitate success is frustrating to will not be able to look at somebody who's getting it their way their time and then go and copy that is baffling to me I don't pick on Dustin at all and I sure hope this message wasn't told that way and I want something really special to happen for him and there's still some players out there and I still think that it can and will and he does deserve it but the miss on this is to think okay I've already done it I did my business I handled Eddie I handled gay Chi I did the press conferences for Nate people loved it something Goods gonna happen to me we have incredibly short-term memories and it reminds me of a fortune cookie I got when I was nine years old and it simply said success is something that people need to be reminded of often I had no idea what it meant and I asked my mother and she explained it to me no matter how you good you looked or what you won last week people will doubt you this week which is why you need to show up again and again and keep on getting the metal and I got it and this business is guilty of it and Frances Sugano as great as he looked and as great as he did in dealing with the pressures and walking into a five-round atmosphere and being one of the very few men in the history of the world to get over on Cain Velasquez had his manager or trainer go up behind the curtain and tap Dana White on the shoulder and say we would like a title shot four minutes later the champion named Daniel Cormier was live on SportsCenter and Ariel Helwani asked him if he was going to give Frances the title shot Daniel Cormier answered the question honestly which was to say he didn't ask for one which was true when Frances was in the ring in front of the world with a microphone in his hand he did not ask for a title shot of which the champ was home and watching and four minutes later went on the biggest sports channel on the goddamn world and answered a question honestly which was to say he didn't ask for one do not wait by your phone to ring pick up your phone and make the call