Inside UFC 249 ace Tony Ferguson’s insane training regime from hitting his bones on metal poles to seven-hour workouts
TONY FERGUSON will go down as one of the most compelling UFC fighters of all time - and he carries that through to his training regime.
The freestyle fighter, who headlines UFC 249 this weekend, is on an amazing 12-fight winning streak, spanning over eight years.
“We trained probably six and a half hours straight, and then we’d take a little break. We’d watch Rocky IV and then we went on midnight runs.
“It was an incredible experience. I actually can’t wait to go back and help him train for his upcoming fight, go on them runs, and do that six and a half, seven hours, Floyd Mayweather-type training.
“It’s champ s***. The guy’s incredible, he’s smart. It’s not just barbaric work. The guy trains with extreme intelligence.”
Ferguson, who has eight submission wins, has also crawled down steps before to improve his movement on the ground.
Usually not interested in traditional training methods, Ferguson is a fan of the speed bag, commonly used to improve a fighters' hand-eye coordination and speed.
But it wouldn't be an El Cucuy session unless there was a twist - leaving it as no surprise that the UFC fighter instead does it blindfolded.
For a long time, Ferguson avoided sparring, revealing before he was scheduled to fight Khabib Nurmagomedov in April that he had not sparred since beating Gleison Tibau in 2015.
The Californian did recently share an unorthodox training video as he aggressively flipped a jump box before performing some grappling manoeuvres all in jeans and shoes.
But before his fight against Nurmagomedov was cancelled amid the coronavirus pandemic, the American had returned to sparring in order to perfect the "gameplan" he planned to use on the lightweight king.
Ferguson said: “I haven’t sparred since Tibau. So, it’s a little bit different now.
“It’s kinda like when you graduate from college, you get a bunch of tools and you actually have to go out there and use them on the field. Now I can gameplan.”
Ferguson was denied the chance to fight unbeaten Khabib for a FIFTH time, with the 31-year-old at home in Dagestan and unable to travel back Stateside to fight.
Instead he will now fight Justin Gaethje in the main-event of UFC 249 for the interim belt.
The winner has then been promised a shot at Nurmagomedov in a unification clash.