Tony Ferguson did not hide his frustration at the press conference for his Misfits Boxing title defense against Kenzo Biyong in Miami on September 26, and by the end of the night he was letting everyone in the room know it. According to, the event went off the rails thanks to the usual influencer antics that come with a Misfits Boxing card, and Ferguson made clear he wanted no part of that circus.

Ferguson, the former UFC interim lightweight champion, told exactly how he sees himself amid the chaos. "What I do is I represent myself very well," he said, drawing a clear line between his own conduct and the theatrics going on around him.

The title defense in question has Ferguson booked under the Misfits Boxing banner, a matchup that has already generated plenty of buzz on the r/MMA forums, where a thread on the booking is getting attention from fans curious how a former title challenger ends up in this kind of setting.

That curiosity is fair given where Ferguson's stock currently sits. Our own tracker has him rated at 1412 Elo across four tracked bouts, a number that reflects just how far his in-cage form has fallen since his best days at 155 pounds. Stepping into the influencer boxing world is as much about spectacle as it is about competition, and Ferguson's reaction at the presser suggests he is not entirely comfortable being lumped in with that world's usual promotional style.

What happens in his next fight will matter less for Ferguson's combat sports legacy than for how he is perceived going forward. A former interim champion clashing with the chaos of Misfits Boxing culture is its own story, and last night's press conference made clear he still has some old school fighter in him, even in a very new school setting.