Tony Ferguson will be moving up to welterweight for a fight with Li Jingliang at UFC 279 on September 10th in Las Vegas.
The weight class switch comes at a time when the 38-year-old Ferguson is in desperate need of a victory, having now lost his last four fights in a row.
That’s a remarkable reversal in fortunes when you consider that before that he’d been on a 12-fight winning streak, but all good things must come to an end, and for Ferguson that began with a brutal beatdown against Justin Gaethje that culminated in a fifth round TKO stoppage.
Unanimous decision losses to Charles Oliveira and Beneil Dariush followed, while most recently Ferguson went up against Michael Chandler and was competing fairly well up until the moment he ate a flush front kick to the head that knocked him out cold for the first time in his career.
Now Ferguson goes up against the 34-year-old Jingliang, who has gone 3-2 in his last five fights, including a KO victory over Santiago Ponzinibbio and TKO stoppages of Elzeu Zaleski dos Santos and Muslim Salikhov, with his losses coming via submission against Khamzat Chimaev and decision against Neil Magny.
Ferguson vs. Jingliang joins a UFC 279 card that will be headlined by a welterweight fight between Khamzat Chimaev and Nate Diaz and will also include Johnny Walker vs. Ion Cutelaba.
