Tony Ferguson responds to John Kavanagh’s intentions to have Conor McGregor fight Nate Diaz next.

If it were up to SBG Dublin head coach John Kavanagh, Conor McGregor would be facing Nate Diaz for the third time on St. Patrick’s Day in 2018. According to him, Diaz is “the right fight”, and that being on the professional level is “about entertainment.”

For Tony Ferguson, going for the Diaz option would only anger fans, whom he feels are expecting McGregor to face the rightful contenders for the title.

“If they want to put that fight together, that’s great,” Ferguson said during Thursday’s UFC 216 pre-fight conference call (transcript via MMA Junkie). “But you know the fans will be pissed, because they obviously know that Diaz and Conor is going to make a lot of money, but the real righteous thing to do is to make sure the belts become unified. That’s what really needs to happen.”

“El Cucuy”, who is scheduled to fight Kevin Lee at UFC 216 for the interim lightweight title, remains old school and keeps to the seemingly passé mentality that rankings should be respected and followed.

“Anything else, as far as him trying to fight Nate, the bullshit rankings and everything else that the UFC stands for, goes out the window, man,” Ferguson said. “I mean, really? You have rankings for a reason. You have an interim belt for a reason – that’s so you can unify the thing.”

UFC 216 is scheduled to happen on October 7th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.