Tony Ferguson Accuses Conor McGregor of Stealing his Lines

On November 5, in the main event of the UFC’s latest trip to Mexico, streaking lightweight contender Tony Ferguson will take on former champion Rafael Dos Anjos in a bout that could well earn the winner a shot at the lightweight title. One week later, in the main event of UFC 205, Irish superstar Conor McGregor will challenge Eddie Alvarez for that UFC lightweight title. This latter bout is the far more talked about of the two.

This, of course, is because McGregor is the most popular fighter in the sport. Over the course of his 9-fight UFC career, the Irishman has blended his fan friendly fighting style with some absolutely stinging trash talk to become a downright MMA mega star.

According to Ferguson, however, the trash talk aspect of McGregor’s game is inauthentic. In fact, the streaking lightweight says McGregor stole some of his best lines from him.

Ferguson discussed McGregor’s alleged trash talk theft on the latest episode of Chael Sonnen’s You’re Welcome podcast.

“That dude stole all my quotes, bro!” Ferguson told Sonnen on the show. “My direct quote that I said when I fought Abel Trujillo, before McNuggets even stepped into the picture, was ‘I don’t look past my opponents, I look through them.’ Look at the timeline, check that shit out, and get back to me.”

McGregor, of course, did utter a close variation on this line in the buildup to his early 2015 bout with Dennis Siver. Whether he stole that line from Ferguson, however, is difficult to verify.

On Sonnen’s show, Ferguson also took credit another big part of McGregor’s persona: his uncanny ability to predict the outcome of his own fights, a skill that earned him the nickname ‘Mystic Mac.’

Ferguson claims it was his idea to begin predicting his own fights, and that his management team, who also represents McGregor, suggested the Irishman do the same.

“I said that I was gonna call my shots, even via D’Arce against Mike Rio,” Ferguson said in the show. “My management went and told Conor, ‘hey, in the next interview, I’ll tell you what, why don’t you predict your fights, and that way it’ll come back towards you and it’ll be great.’”

Quite the accusation from Ferguson! Do you believe him? Sound off, PENN nation!