Tony Ferguson directs an intense threat at Conor McGregor

Last weekend, in the main event of UFC 216, Tony Ferguson defeated Kevin Lee to capture the UFC interim lightweight title. In the wake of this title win, Ferguson quickly set his sights on a title unification battle with undisputed champion Conor McGregor, and according to UFC President Dana White, this is indeed the direction things are headed.

On Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, the new champ Tony Ferguson discussed his desired bout with McGregor. Apparently, he’s taking White’s word, and believes the UFC will attempt to book this fight.

“I believe so,” Ferguson said. “I mean, if Dana says it, then we’re going to hold it to him. The UFC is pretty good with that, right? They don’t want to be called liars, and I don’t want to make them a liar, so this sh*t needs to happen.”

That said, Ferguson does see one major issue blocking the fruition of this fight: he thinks McGregor is scared.

“Look, Conor watches the fights,” he said. “This dude didn’t say sh*t. He didn’t say sh*t on Twitter. He didn’t even comment saying ‘good fight.’ He said he was looking forward to watching this fight — he hasn’t said nothing. The boy is scared. He’s running. I told him, just set the belt down and walk away and nobody will get hurt. That’s all you’ve got to do: just set it down and you won’t get ass kicked, I swear, by another Mexican. This is a tough fight for him, man, and I don’t think that he’s got enough cornermen in the world to try to help him on this one.”

But really, it doesn’t matter, because Ferguson is prepared to follow his nemesis to the ends of the earth. The new interim champion issued a grim threat to this end on the show:

“Conor needs his ass kicked and we need to unify that belt. Otherwise he needs to vacate, set it down, walk away, and never f*cking come back,” Ferguson said. “Because if you go to 170, if you go to 185, or even if you drop to 145, I will f*cking follow you, Conor, and I will haunt your f*cking dreams, kid, and I will come after you. And one day, no matter whether we have the same management or not, you will f*cking see me again. And I will put some pain on you, bro.”

Do you think Tony Ferguson and Conor McGregor will fight?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 10/10/2017.