Tony Ferguson’s Misfits Title Defense Against Kenzo Biyong

Tony Ferguson refuses to fade quietly.

The former UFC interim Lightweight champion, once mired in an eight-fight losing skid that looked like the end of a storied career, is now headlining a very different kind of fight night. On Sept. 26, 2026, inside the James L. Knight Center in Miami, Florida, “El Cucuy” will defend his Misfits Middleweight title against former soccer defender Kenzo Biyong in a five-round boxing main event streamed live on DAZN.

It’s a matchup that sounds like it was pulled from a fever dream: a 42-year-old MMA cult hero against a 28-year-old ex-footballer turned grappler making his boxing debut. Misfits Boxing leaned straight into the chaos and announced the bout over the weekend, adding another layer of spectacle to a card already built on combat-sports crossovers.

Ferguson, somehow, has turned this circus into a lifeline.

After leaving the UFC on the back of that brutal eight-fight slide, he walked into Misfits last August carrying nearly six years without a win. He walked out with a third-round stoppage over influencer Salt Papi and something far more valuable: momentum. The win snapped his agonizing drought and reminded fans why his name still moves the needle.

Four months later, he doubled down. Ferguson dropped Warren Spencer and outworked him over five rounds, earning a unanimous decision and the vacant Misfits Middleweight belt. Two fights, two wins, one title. The man who couldn’t buy a victory in the UFC suddenly looked reborn under boxing rules, even if the stage was unorthodox and the opposition unconventional.

First Defense

Now comes the first defense — and another left-field opponent.

Biyong’s path to this moment is as jagged as Ferguson’s, just shorter. The Dutch athlete once lived the structured life of a defender in European youth and developmental soccer systems before walking away from the game. He switched fields entirely, moving into wrestling and submission grappling, trading boots for mats.

That shift led him to UFC BJJ, where he made his debut this past April at UFC BJJ 7. It ended quickly and painfully: a first-round rear-naked choke defeat to Raphael Ferreira. The lesson was harsh, the exposure real. Now Biyong is stepping into yet another new world, this time with boxing gloves and a title on the line against a man who’s spent a decade thriving in chaos.

Competitive Detours

Ferguson’s recent competitive detours only add to the intrigue. In June, he tested himself on the wrestling mat at Real American Freestyle (RAF) 10 and ran into UFC Lightweight contender Arman Tsarukyan. The result was one-sided — a 10-0 technical-fall loss — but it underlined a truth about Ferguson at this stage: he keeps saying yes. To risk. To oddities. To anything that feels like a fight.

This Misfits card leans heavily into that spirit.

Alongside Ferguson vs. Biyong, former two-division UFC champion Henry Cejudo will box Deen the Great, a collision of Olympic gold and influencer fame that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. Misfits Heavyweight champion Chase DeMoor will also defend his belt against Plinio Cruz, better known to many as Alex Pereira’s head coach than as a headlining fighter in his own right.

The lines between sports, platforms, and eras keep blurring. Purists may grumble. The numbers say people are still watching.

For Ferguson, the equation is simpler. At 42, there aren’t many traditional roads left. But there is still a ring, still a crowd, still a man in the opposite corner trying to take something from him. On Sept. 26 in Miami, against a younger, fresher, but untested Kenzo Biyong, we find out how long “El Cucuy” can keep reinventing himself in a world that refuses to stop reinventing the fight game around him.