As we approach the last few months of 2017, it seems as if a Lightweight Championship unification fight between Conor McGregor and Tony Ferguson could actually happen before the year comes to a close.
The news comes after UFC president Dana White admitted that The Notorious One does indeed want to fight again before the year is out, despite many others believing that the Irishman will instead choose to take the rest of the year off.
Conor, who hasn’t fought inside the octagon in eleven months, is coming off the back of his professional boxing debut against the legendary Floyd Mayweather. On the opposite end of the scale, interim champion Tony Ferguson is still riding the success of his victory over Kevin Lee at UFC 216 this past weekend.
The two seem poised to throw down at some point, with Conor receiving more and more criticism for not defending his belt yet. El Cucuy, on the other hand, is on the run of his career with 10 consecutive victories within the division to his name.
It seems like destiny is going to bring these two together when, in reality, it’s logic. A lot of UFC fans obviously still want to see the third and final fight in the McGregor-Diaz trilogy, but in reality, we all know that fight isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
It’ll still be there six months down the line, meanwhile the UFC 219 card needs something big to end the year. You don’t exactly have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that 2017 has been relatively poor for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and having one of their biggest draws of all time on the bill for the last hurrah heading into 2018 would be huge.
Some people believe that Ferguson isn’t up for the challenge, but his trash talking abilities combined with his actual skills inside the octagon have come a long way in an extremely short space of time. By all accounts this is a match made in heaven, and that’s not something we would’ve been expecting to say prior to Saturday’s event in Las Vegas.
With Holly Holm vs Cris Cyborg also being rumoured to take place on this card, we could have a two-fight main event that could really set the UFC up nicely as they prepare for a vital start to 2018. Sure, it may not do as well as the Diaz 2 fight in terms of pay per view numbers, but anything with McGregor involved will likely hit the seven figure mark so that’s something to be happy about.
