5 bold predictions for the UFC in 2019

#3 Khabib Nurmagomedov will finally face Tony Ferguson

Will we finally see Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Tony Ferguson in 2019?

Despite Dana White stating in October that Tony Ferguson – who is on a wild eleven-fight win streak in the UFC’s most packed division – would definitely be getting the next title shot at Lightweight, recent reports seem to suggest otherwise.

First, there was a hint from White that a Khabib Nurmagomedov/Conor McGregor rematch for the title could be coming in 2019, and then there was an interview with Khabib’s manager Ali Abdelaziz that suggested his fighter would refuse a booking with Ferguson due to the latter’s apparent inability to sell pay-per-views.

I’m actually going out on a limb however and predicting that we will – finally – get a title fight between Khabib and Ferguson before the end of the year. The fight simply makes too much sense not to be booked, and I think fans would be in uproar if anyone else were granted a title shot before ‘El Cucuy’; it’d begin to look like the situation surrounding Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell in the mid-2000s, when Ortiz was accused of ducking ‘The Iceman’.

It might make sense for Khabib to demand an opponent who can sell more pay-per-views, but I’m not even sure that a second McGregor fight would draw as well, especially if Conor doesn’t pick up a win beforehand. And outside of McGregor, and a huge curveball like a fight with Georges St-Pierre, nobody is going to draw hugely alongside Khabib – who really isn’t a proven “a-side” pay-per-view draw yet anyway.

The UFC must know that a Khabib/Ferguson fight makes sense before a prospective rematch between Khabib and McGregor, and so I think they’ll throw money at ‘The Eagle’ to make it happen in the first half of 2019 before building to a McGregor fight in the latter half of the year.