Tony Ferguson reveals Chael Sonnen offered him a fight against Kamaru Usman at Submission Underground

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UFC 229: Ferguson v Pettis

Tony Ferguson will look to rebound from back-to-back losses when he faces Beneil Dariush at UFC 262. While there may be several speculations about the wane of his career, 'El Cucuy' seemingly has no dearth of opponents.

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In a recent episode of the Ariel Helwani Show, Tony Ferguson revealed that he was offered a fight against UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman at Submission Underground.

While talking about his interest in fighting Islam Makhachev, Ferguson said:

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"I don’t know. I’m gonna be real. There’s a lot. They offered me Kamaru Usman as to Submission Underground."

Tony Ferguson also confirmed that it was Chael Sonnen, the founder of Submission Underground who offered him the fight. While there might be several options at hand, Ferguson also seemed focused on his next opponent, Beneil Dariush.

Refusing to say too much before the fight, Tony Ferguson said:

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“Yeah, you know what I mean. There’s a lot of options when it comes down to competition and stuff but right now we got Beneil Dariush. And I know their whole entire crew at Kings MMA is open. So it fells exactly like how it was in The Ultimate Fighter. And it’s Beneil right now. I can’t say more, like it’ll be dumb to be doing all that stuff. But I know they have a gameplan. I’m gonna put it right back in it’s place.”

Tony Ferguson will look to bounce back

Confirmed UFC is finalizing Tony Ferguson (@TonyFergusonXT) vs. Beneil Dariush (@beneildariush) on May 15. Great fight. Only other fight I would have wanted to see for Tony was Nate Diaz, but that never seemed likely. And perfect fight for Beneil. He's earned it.

— Brett Okamoto (@bokamotoESPN) March 12, 2021

Tony Ferguson enters UFC 262 on a two-fight skid after having dropped consecutive bouts to Justin Gaethje and Charles Oliveira. Ferguson lost to Gaethje via fifth round TKO at UFC 249 and dropped a subsequent lopsided unanimous decision to Charles Oliveira at UFC 256.

Prior to the first losing streak of his career, Tony Ferguson was riding a 12 fight win streak with victories over Donald Cerrone, Anthony Pettis, Kevin Lee and Edson Barboza amongst others.

Beneil Dariush, on the other hand, is riding a magnificent six-fight win streak with finishes in four of them. In his most recent outing, Dariush won a split decision against Diego Ferreira in a Fight of the Night Performance.

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