{"id":319535,"date":"2025-08-05T10:07:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T10:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/319535\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T10:07:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T10:07:09","slug":"tik-tok-star-salt-papi-was-offered-three-ufc-legends-before-tony-ferguson-fight-came-to-fruition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/319535\/","title":{"rendered":"Tik Tok star Salt Papi was offered three UFC legends before Tony Ferguson fight came to fruition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Before being matched with UFC legend Tony Ferguson, Salt Papi was promised some massive names for his boxing return.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Tik Tok dancer-turned-boxer is one of Misfits Boxing\u2019s<\/a> most popular fighters, knocking out the likes of King Kenny<\/a> and Josh Brueckner on his run since the promotion began in 2022. His record with MMA fighters is so-so, stopping Brueckner and Amadeusz Ferrari either side of a loss to Anthony Taylor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And he takes on a new brand of challenge on August 30 at the AO Arena in Manchester when he faces Ferguson. The American is a former interim lightweight UFC champion who was once one of the sport\u2019s most feared fighters, but has been on a lengthy losing streak for the past five years.<\/p>\n

Salt Papi was offered multiple UFC legends before Tony Ferguson fight was booked<\/p>\n

Since his star-making knockout of King Kenny<\/a> back in November, there have been a number of fights offered to Salt Papi<\/a> for his eventual ring return. He had a number of big victories last year, and is now almost back to his early 2023 peak of popularity.<\/p>\n

As a result, Misfits Boxing bosses needed to find him a big name for his ring return. And speaking with Fred Talks Fighting, the Filipino fighter explained who was offered to him before they landed on Ferguson.<\/p>\n

\u201cTony is a legendary fighter and I was shocked when he accepted the fight,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t expect him, such a big name, to give me an opportunity to fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure if they turned it down, maybe they were just busy, but I had people on the list like Anthony Pettis, Mike Perry, Nate Diaz. All the big names, really, and Mams told me Tony wants to fight, so that\u2019s it. We can always revisit or fight a professional boxer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tony Ferguson insists he wasn\u2019t cut from UFC after losing streak<\/p>\n

Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Tony Ferguson\u2019s 12-fight winning streak had fans wondering if he would be the man to defeat Khabib Nurmagomedov<\/a>. The pair were due to fight four separate times, but it never came to fruition.<\/p>\n

And when he finally did lose to Justin Gaethje in early 2020, the floodgates opened and Ferguson never won again in eight fights. However, he claims that he wasn\u2019t let go by the UFC, but his decision to leave was mutual.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just f\u2014\u2014 boring as s\u2014 to me,\u201d Ferguson said of his last fights in the UFC during his face-off with Salt Papi. \u201cIt was just like I was just doing it just to f\u2014\u2014 do it so people can see me compete until we both parted ways in a good [understanding]\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before being matched with UFC legend Tony Ferguson, Salt Papi was promised some massive names for his boxing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,23034,115980,79,107109,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-319535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-misfits-boxing","10":"tag-salt-papi","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tony-ferguson","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114975607598741379","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}