Tony Ferguson made a surprising admission at the RAF 10 press conference in St. Louis, revealing that he had no wrestling partners during his training camp ahead of his co-main event freestyle wrestling match against Arman Tsarukyan.
The revelation came after Tsarukyan directly questioned Ferguson about his preparation for the matchup. Rather than avoiding the topic, Ferguson offered an unconventional explanation for how he trained.
“You know what the funny thing is? I’ve had zero wrestling partners for this camp,” Ferguson said.
He then explained that he relied on specialized training equipment instead of live partners.
“Only you in the gym?” Tsarukyan asked, clearly surprised.
Ferguson snapped back, saying, “You know what the best thing is? Do you know what I own? I own Adam Takedown machines. I bought that from Dan Gable’s roommate.”
Ferguson continued by detailing how he incorporated the machine into his preparation.
“I flew him in and I showed him exactly what I could do with that machine,” he said. “Not just jiujitsu, but wrestling, striking and everything else. Now, if your bones are stronger than metal, we’ll see how that goes.”
The admission immediately drew attention, especially given that Tsarukyan had spent much of the press conference questioning the quality of Ferguson’s training.
Earlier in the event, the undefeated RAF competitor joked that Ferguson appeared to be dancing rather than wrestling in the training footage he had seen.
Ferguson, however, was quick to remind everyone of his wrestling credentials. The former UFC interim lightweight champion won an NCAA Division II national championship at Grand Valley State in 2006 and pointed to his experience competing against elite opposition.
“I bumped up two weight classes and wrestled Jon Jones at the Cliff Keen National Duals and lost by one point,” Ferguson said. “I was wrestling at 174 lbs, 176 lbs when these guys were cutting from 200 lbs. I took third at nationals that year.”
The matchup between Ferguson and Tsarukyan had reportedly been discussed long before RAF 10. According to Ferguson, the two were originally supposed to wrestle at a previous event in Thailand, but the timing was not right.
“We were gonna wrestle before for hype a long time ago,” Ferguson said. “Didn’t work out.”
He then delivered one of his trademark metaphors while explaining why the match was delayed.
“I’m a hunter, but I don’t like to kill things. I like to track things,” Ferguson said. “And at the time, he wasn’t ready to be hunted.”
Ferguson concluded by suggesting that Tsarukyan used the extra time to develop his skills.
“What I did was I gave him some homework and he took it, went with it, and now we’re here.”
The co-main event between Ferguson and Tsarukyan takes place Saturday night at RAF 10 in St. Louis.
