Chael Sonnen Says Tony Ferguson Made a Big Mistake by Making Changes

Tony Ferguson suffered back-to-back defeats for the first time in his illustrious career after dropping a decision against Charles Oliveira at UFC 256. In preparation for this bout, Ferguson made significant changes to his approach. He changed training partners and revamped his team. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out as a successful move for “El Cucuy“.

Chael Sonnen explained in an interview with Ariel Helwani, what went wrong for Ferguson exactly. He also had some word of advice for his fellow wrestler. The former fighter said, “It’s never a good sign whenever an athlete (when everything is going well) changes something. He changed everything, he cleaned house with his corner. He cleaned house his gym with his training partners. I know he was hoping that was gonna invigorate him.”

“But history says something different. History says when you change what you’re doing, you get a different resolve by doing it. I only bring that to you because sometimes it takes a little bit getting used to. I don’t know that it was a strategic problem that he had. One thing in this fight that did surprise me from an xs and os standpoint was how easily he was taken down.”

Sonnen expressed his surprise at how easily ‘Do Bronx’ managed to take ‘El Cucuy’ to the ground. He even touched upon how Oliveira predicted that he would dominate the 36-year-old on the ground.  Sonnen added to his point as he mentioned Ferguson has always been hard to force to the mat.

At UFC 256, ‘Do Bronx’ had over 11 minutes of control time on the ground.

Chael Sonnen also shared some advice for Tony Ferguson

Sonnen believes Ferguson might have got some technical points wrong for his last fight, but he has some attributes that other fighters in the roster don’t have. And those skills are the hardest achievable and deciding points of a fight.

‘The Bad Guy’ concluded on what changes Ferguson should make ahead of his next entry to the octagon.

“So, I think he’s gotta couple of adjustments that he can go and work on. Certainly, toughness is not one of them, grit is not one of them, and conditioning is not one of them. Three of the hardest things to obtain, he has already got.”

What do you make of this excellent Chael Sonnen analysis of Tony Ferguson? What’s next for “El Cucuy” in the lightweight division?