Tony Ferguson Gets a New Foe Four Days Before Misfits Title Defense

Tony Ferguson's Saturday night just got rewritten. Misfits Boxing confirmed Tuesday that the promotion's middleweight champion will now defend his belt against former Olympic wrestler Mahmoud Sebie, four days out from the card at Miami's James L. Knight Center. Original opponent Kenzo Biyong withdrew over what the promotion described as travel complications.

The switch drops a Greco-Roman specialist into a boxing ring on short notice. Sebie represented Egypt at the 2016 Rio Games, later tried to make the jump to Team USA, then saw the COVID-postponed 2020 Olympics end his wrestling run before it restarted. His combat-sports résumé since includes a tech-fall loss to Zahid Valencia at RAF 6 — which tells you where his skills actually live, and it isn't inside the ropes.

How Ferguson Got the Belt

Ferguson, a name US fans know from a long stretch as a UFC lightweight contender, built his Misfits reign quickly. He won the interim title against Salt Papi, then unified with a championship win over Warren Spencer. This is crossover-era combat sports doing what it does best: taking a familiar face and handing him hardware in a new arena.

His last outing wasn't in a boxing ring at all. At RAF 10 in June, Ferguson lost via tech fall to Arman Tsarukyan — currently the UFC's #2-ranked lightweight at 24-3, riding momentum after a first-round knockout of Mauricio Ruffy. That grappling detour clearly didn't dent Ferguson's appetite for pivoting between disciplines.

The Bigger Draw

The main event is the real headline magnet. Former two-division UFC champ Henry Cejudo makes his pro boxing debut against undefeated MVP prospect and actor Wanna Walton. Cejudo, 16-6 in the UFC with eight knockouts, is coming off a unanimous-decision loss to Payton Talbott — so, like Ferguson, he's trying something new after a rough patch.

Short-notice replacements are their own kind of gamble, and a wrestler stepping into a boxing title fight with four days' notice raises the obvious question about how competitive it stays. Ferguson has the boxing pedigree here; Sebie has the fight-week courage. Saturday in Miami will sort out whether that's enough.