Nick Diaz isn’t the only veteran star being wheeled out for UFC On ABC 7 as Tony Ferguson will also get yet another chance to return to the win column when he takes on Michael Chiesa in Abu Dhabi on August 3rd.
Given that a few years ago Ferguson was on a 12-fight winning streak his recent record makes for painful reading as the 40-year-old has gone winless in his last seven fights.
It all start to go south for Ferguson back in 2020 when he was badly beaten by Justin Gaethje, leading to a late 5th round TKO finish, and he’s never seemed the same since.
To be fair he did continue to lose to only top-flight competition for a while, suffering convincing decision losses to the likes of Charles Oliveira and Beneil Dariush along with a nasty KO loss to Michael Chandler, but he’s continued to slide downhill since with submission losses to Nate Diaz and Bobby Green being followed by his most recent unanimous decision defeat against Paddy Pimblett.
Now Ferguson will be going up to welterweight for only the 2nd time in his career (the last being against Nate Diaz) to fight the 36-year-old Chiesa, who has had his own struggles in the past few years, suffering a trio of losses against Vicente Luque, Sean Brady and Kevin Holland.
It’s been a disappointing run given that Chiesa looked good during a four-fight winning streak prior to that, but despite some calls for him to retire it seems he still believes he can turn things around, and the UFC analyst appears to have been given a favorable match-up in his attempt to do that.
Ferguson vs. Chiesa and Nick Diaz vs. Vicente Luque are two curious pairings for UFC On ABC 7, with some observers already suggesting that Diaz vs Ferguson was the fight to make, but nonetheless the event proceeds with a line-up that will be headlined by a bantamweight title elimination fight between Cory Sandhagen and Umar Nurmagomedov.
