Former opponent begs Tony Ferguson to 'have a reality check' about his career (Video)

Tony Ferguson hasn't won a fight since 2019 and is currently riding a six-fight losing streak, including three back-to-back finishes.

The string of losses paired with troubling behavior have led fans and fighters alike to urge him to hang up his gloves forever.

A former opponent is the latest to offer their opinion about what Ferguson should do next.

“You have to take a good, hard look at yourself in the mirror and go, ‘This is coming to an end real quick.’ It’s going to come sooner than you think,” Josh Thompson said on his podcast. “And if not, if it doesn’t come to an end real quick, there’s a whole — and you’ll notice it within a couple years of you being retired. And I’m saying this directly to Tony, is that you’re going to notice things in your brain. You’re going to notice things in the way you talk to people. You’re going to notice things in the way you talk to your wife, the way you talk to your kids, the way you handle yourself. You need to have a reality check.

Thompson fought Ferguson in 2015 when Ferguson was at the height of his career. Thompson lost via unanimous decision and Ferguson went on to win another six in a row after that.

“I can’t even explain it. You have to understand how to reel it in, because you’re the only one in charge of your mentality and your body language, and the words that come out of your mouth that can affect your relationships with everyone. And I’ve had these conversations with myself a lot, because there’s times when words come out of your mouth and you don’t realize it. And so I get nervous for him, watching him take these Ls. I become a little emotional, it’s a little f***ed up, but I care for the guy. I care for all these fighters.”

Ferguson has suffered several scary moments in the last few years including a vicious kick KO to Michael Chandler and a five-round war with Justin Gaethje that ended in a fifth-round TKO.

“It’s 10 years off his life,” Thomson said. “Here’s the thing though, the Justin Gaethje fight and the Charles Oliveira fight, those two fights alone — and I speak from experience because it happened to me with [Ferguson] — at that age, the damage he took in that Gaethje fight, it changes you. It changes your body. It changes the way you think. ... It’s not even so much [doing it] a couple times, it’s sometimes just one time. And at the age that he was at, I believe he was 36 or 37 at the time of the Gaethje fight, you’re not the same. And after the Tony fight, I was never the same. I never fought the same after that. I fought more conservative, I was always a step behind.

Ferguson also suffers from mental issues which his wife says is helped with anti-psychotic medication. He was recently involved in an alleged DUI.

Josh Thompson says after Tony Feruson loss he was 'shivering in the shower' from shock

Thompson revealed how difficult the loss to Ferguson all those years ago.

“I was in the back after that [Ferguson loss] for about probably 45 minutes to an hour, shivering in the shower. The shower was on hot steam water and my body was shivering. I couldn’t control myself. I was shivering so much. I’d lost so much blood, my body was in shock, and it took me a long time that night to actually get my body to stop shivering. I’d say it took me probably about two hours, three hours for my body not to shiver. And I had sweats on, I had sweaters on. We were in San Diego, by the way; the weather was nice.

“It’s just, you’re not the same fighter,” Thomson continued.