Ex-UFC title challenger Dan Hardy believes Tony Ferguson will ultimately pay the price for choosing to work with David Goggins instead of focusing on improving his fundamentals inside the Octagon.
Ferguson, who is riding a six-fight losing streak dating back to May 2020, will try to climb back into the win column against one of the promotion’s rising stars, Paddy Pimblett. The pair will square off at UFC 296 this Saturday night (December 16) in Las Vegas. To prepare himself, ‘El Cucuy’ enlisted the help of ultra-marathon runner and ex-U.S. Navy Seal David Goggins.
Goggins put Ferguson through a weeklong training regimen dubbed “hell week.” Video footage on social media showed the former interim titleholder going through rigorous cardio routines and even throwing up in the gym as a result.
Tony Ferguson is training with David Goggins right nowpic.twitter.com/6jrHedYP9i
— Bloody Elbow (@BloodyElbow) November 7, 2023
Sharing his thoughts on Ferguson’s training camp for what could be his final UFC fight, Dan Hardy suggested that ‘El Cucuy’ made a gross error in judgment by focusing on cardio, something he’s never once lacked in his 15-year career.
“I think we’re going to see an evolved striking skill set from Paddy in this one,” Hardy said during an appearance on Submission Radio. “I think he’s going to respect the ground game of Tony Ferguson as well as the toughness, but ultimately, he has lost a step. He’s not as fast as he used to be and he can’t take a shot the way that he used to be able to. And I feel like with Paddy, although his striking can look quite reckless… I know it’s something he’s working hard on because that’s the area where people are going to want to challenge him.
“I think he’s going to be confident that he’s going to be faster than Tony and land shots and take them better than Tony. But I also feel like, and I think Paddy has highlighted this in his own comments. I think Tony has mis-invested in energy in this training camp. He didn’t need cardio or heart. If one thing is going to stay with Tony Ferguson, it’s those two things.
“He’s losing his ability to react. He’s losing his ability to move at speed. These are the things he’s going to struggle with in the fight and he’s not done anything from what we’ve seen training with David Goggins to bolster these things. He’s not doing any kind of plyometric training. He’s not doing any reactionary drills from what I can tell. He’s certainly not working any simple technical basics which is really what he needs.”
Dan Hardy Believes Tony Ferguson Would Have Been Better Servered Working with Legendary Trainer Freddie Roach
Hardy believes Ferguson would have been better served working with someone like Freddie Roach, a world-renowned trainer and former professional boxer who has worked with some of the biggest names in combat sports, including Manny Pacquiao, James Tony, Julio César Chávez Jr., and Georges St-Pierre.
“He would have been better working with someone like Freddie Roach. Someone who’s going to make him sit down on his punches and move one foot after the next. Maybe be less chaotic and more fundamentally sound. Because if I’m an older guy fighting someone like Paddy, I’m expecting speed and I’m expecting a fluidity from striking to grappling that might catch Tony Ferguson off guard because he’s just not the fighter that he was.”
He added, “I have a concern that he’s probably run himself into the ground in this training camp and we’ll be looking back on this in hindsight… Should it be a [seventh] loss in a row, we’ll be looking back on this in hindsight and he’ll be thinking to himself, ‘I should have worked on my basics instead of driving myself into the ground on a treadmill.'”
It remains to be seen what kind of effect Goggins’ training has on Tony Ferguson, but rest assured, if ‘El Cucuy’ pulls off the upset at UFC 296, the ex-Navy Seal will likely see a significant increase to his client list.
Watch the full interview below:
