It appears Tony Ferguson’s legendary run in the UFC is finally over.
At the peak of his powers, ‘El Cucuy’ won an interim title and put together a historic 12-fight winning run.
However, he’s currently riding an eight-fight losing streak. Most recently, he was tapped out by Michael Chiesa at UFC Abu Dhabi in August before terrifying fight fans by refusing to retire afterward.
Now a new MMA organization has claimed they have added Tony Ferguson to their growing roster.
🚨| BREAKING: The GFL have announced the signing of Tony Ferguson. 😱 pic.twitter.com/MvVtifCpc1
— MMA Orbit (@mma_orbit) January 24, 2025
Global Fight League announce Tony Ferguson signing
On Friday, Global Fight League [GFL] sent shockwaves through the MMA world with a social media post.
“@tonyfergusonxt signs with the Global Fight League. #MMA #GFL #USA,” they wrote alongside a graphic featuring Ferguson, which was posted to their official Instagram account.
Fans were caught off-guard by the announcement as Tony Ferguson hasn’t been officially released by the UFC.
The American fan favorite hasn’t confirmed his signing with GFL yet. Meanwhile, UFC boss Dana White hasn’t made any public statements about letting one of the greatest lightweight fighters ever leave his MMA league.
Naturally, the comment section of GFL’s latest post was full of confused and excited fight fans.
“OMFG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!!,” one person replied. While another asked: “When was he released???”
“What is going on???,” Someone else said.
“WHATTTTTTT,” a fourth fan exclaimed.
“Fake news again,” one skeptical fan commented:
“Let me get this fight,” GFL star Chris Giagos added.
Who else has GFL signed?
Paige VanZant is set to make her MMA return for GFL after walking away from the sport in 2020.
The former UFC star is the biggest signing they’ve made yet, but the new promotion has picked up a bunch of big names, with Tyron Woodley, Luke Rockhold, Benson Henderson, Anthony Pettis, Andrei Arlovski, Frank Mir, Fabricio Werdum, and Junior dos Santos all on their roster.
Other GFL stars include Wanderlei Silva, Alex Gustafsson, Hector Lombard, Thiago Santos, Kevin Lee, Jeremy Stephens, Marlon Moraes, Gegard Mousasi, Greg Hardy, Robelis Despaigne, Bubba Jenkins, Tanner Boser, Philipe Lins, and Will Brooks.
However, GFL has been accused of jumping the gun when it comes to announcing new signings.
Earlier this week, OKTAGON issued a statement after it was announced that two of their fighters were joining GFL.
It read: “In response to questions regarding the possible move of our fighters to another organization, we confirm that Andreas Michailidis and Mateusz Duczmal are under a long-term, exclusive contract with our organization. We declare the information currently circulating online to be false.”
So, fans may want to wait before they get too excited about Ferguson fighting in a new MMA league.