UFC: Ali Abdelaziz asks Tony Ferguson if he’s ‘ready to die in there’ like Justin Gaethje
- Dominance MMA manager Abdelaziz thinks Ferguson will struggle to deal with Gaethje’s power at UFC 249
- ‘I wanna know how hard he can take Justin’s hit, because Justin is gonna hit him’
Ali Abdelaziz thinks Tony Ferguson has never dealt with power like Justin Gaethje’s and will be in for a rude awakening when the two meet for the interim lightweight title.
Gaethje’s manager told ESPN’s Brett Okamoto that, having watched “The Highlight” training up close and personal this week with his Dominance MMA teammates, he has never been more confident in the No 4-ranked lightweight.
“Tony Ferguson is an unorthodox, crazy fighter who come at you with different angles,” Abdelaziz said. “He’s a brawler [with an] opportunistic ground game. I’m not gonna say he have very high-level ground game, because we saw what Kevin Lee did to him. He mounted him and he almost took his back.
“But Tony, he hurt you, he catch you with submissions, almost like a catch wrestler. A jiu-jitsu black belt, of course he have great coach like Eddie Bravo. Without him it would be a 50-50 fight.
“Catch guys with submission, that’s Eddie Bravo’s style. I got to give respect to him, but realistically he’s fighting a guy who’s the best technical brawler we’ve ever seen in the sport.