Tony Ferguson is training with Georges St-Pierre ahead of his UFC 262 fight against Beneil Dariush. In the lead-up to his pivotal UFC 262 matchup, Ferguson has been training at legendary boxing trainer Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Boxing Club.
A photograph of Georges St-Pierre, Freddie Roach and Tony Ferguson at the Wild Card gym has set the MMA community abuzz. The said photograph was posted by St-Pierre and the Wild Card gym’s official Instagram accounts.
Fans can check out the Instagram posts below:
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Freddie Roach is widely regarded as one of the greatest boxing trainers of all time. Roach, himself a former professional boxer, has trained many world-class boxers.
Some of the notable boxers trained by Roach are Manny Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto, and James Toney. He’s also served as the trainer for Oscar De La Hoya and Amir Khan.
Additionally, Freddie Roach has also brought his expertise in boxing to the MMA realm. Roach has helped notable top-tier MMA fighters improve their boxing and overall striking skills. Although he’s known to adopt a more boxing-centric approach in his teachings, he’s been praised for adapting to the varying striking dynamics that come in an MMA fight.
Accordingly, Freddie Roach has helped many MMA fighters hone their pugilistic skills specifically for use in an MMA fight. Some of the notable MMA fighters whom Roach has trained are BJ Penn, Tito Ortiz, Anderson Silva, Andrei Arlovski, and Georges St-Pierre.
Tony Ferguson has been spending a considerable amount of time training under the guidance of Freddie Roach at the Wild Card gym. Ferguson has lately been putting in significant effort into evolving his boxing, overall striking, grappling, and well-roundedness, even more so than he used to prior to his recent skid.
Georges St-Pierre and Tony Ferguson are at vastly different stages in their respective careers
Georges St-Pierre is 39 years of age. Tony Ferguson is 37, just a bit younger than GSP. Nevertheless, St-Pierre and Ferguson are at vastly different stages in their respective careers. GSP’s last fight was a third-round submission win against Michael Bisping at UFC 217 in November 2017.
The fight was Georges St-Pierre’s comeback after having been retired for about four years. The fight witnessed St-Pierre win the UFC middleweight title. GSP later vacated the title and once again retired from the sport of MMA.
Meanwhile, Tony Ferguson had his legendary 12-fight win streak snapped by a fifth-round TKO loss against Justin Gaethje at UFC 249 (May 2020). Ferguson then suffered a unanimous decision loss against Charles Oliveira at UFC 256 (December 2020).
Presently, Tony Ferguson is scheduled to fight Beneil Dariush at UFC 262 (May 15th, 2021). A win for Ferguson would help him rebuild towards another shot at UFC gold. Alternatively, if Ferguson were to lose at UFC 262, his quest to win the undisputed UFC lightweight title could be seriously jeopardized.