Tony Ferguson is leaving nothing to chance ahead of his fight with Paddy 'the Baddy' Pimblett.
'El Cucy' faces the Liverpudlian on December 17 at UFC 296 on the back of a six-fight losing streak dating back to 2019. Desperate to get back amongst the wins, Ferguson has enlisted the help of one of the toughest men on the planet.
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David Goggins is a former Navy SEAL, ultramarathon runner and bestselling author whose self-help memoirs 'Can't Hurt Me' and 'Never Finished' have sold millions of copies.
The 48-year-old American has amassed a huge following on social media, especially on Instagram where he often encourages his 9m followers to 'get after it' while working out and running hundreds of miles.
Ferguson, the former UFC interim lightweight champion, has recently teamed up with Goggins in a bid to revive his career. The 39-year-old's last win inside the octagon came against Donald Cerrone in 2019, and in the years since he has lost to Justin Gaethje, Bobby Green and Nate Diaz.
HELL WEEK
In order to prepare him for his bout against Pimblett, Goggins has pushed Ferguson to his mental and physical limits in a brutal training regime known as "Hell Week".
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Hell Week - which Goggins has done three of - is performed by US Navy SEALS as part of their training and requires them to perform physical challenges for over 20 hours a day.
Day 1 of Ferguson's Hell Week started on November 7th and involved the 155lber completing more than three hours of gruelling high-intensity cardio, over 600 push-ups, and tons of chest exercises, bike, and rowing work.
Goggins shared a video montage of Ferguson's first day in Hell Week which included the fighter throwing up into a toilet bowl out of sheer exhaustion.
The ex-military man's next video with Ferguson featured the pair doing one mile of walking lunges. Goggins shared that they'd been doing the exercise for over 53 minutes.
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"Some people have no idea of the time required to be a champion! They have the math all wrong", Goggins wrote. "If you are fighting for 15 minutes, you have to put in thousands of hours in training, practising, studying the craft and your opponent, etc.
"Training the mind requires countless hours. You need to find those things that put your mind in the hurt locker.
"You have to be willing to push yourself to the limit and once you reach that limit, that is when your training begins."
Day 3 of Hell Week saw the duo hit the treadmill.
TIME TO THROW UP
"This is where you win!" Goggins, who was on the machine next to Ferguson, exclaimed.
"This ain't no f***ing game!" the social media personality yelled at the camera before it panned to Ferguson who was gasping for air and dripping with sweat while running.
Ferguson can be heard huffing and puffing and crying out in pain before jumping off the treadmill to throw up in a bag next to him.
"Many of you will not understand what I am putting Tony through right now but when a man like Tony is looking for more, it forces him to go deep into the dungeon because my job is to make him find every bit of himself and then some," Goggins captioned the post.
"And he is doing just that!!! He has an unbelievable resolve, ability and willingness to suffer. This speaks to his character. This is not for the weak."
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The next update included Goggins letting everyone know they'd already started the day off with jumping jack push-ups, which is ten, four count jumping jacks followed by ten push-ups for 45 minutes non-stop.
They then got into walking lunges as Goggins recounted the previous day's work.
"Stair climber, treadmill, high incline, assault bike, and repeat that over again," he said. "Then at night time, we did a full leg workout."
BARELY ABLE TO WALK
"Neither one of us could barely walk after the workouts we put ourselves through yesterday and yet we upped it another notch today," he wrote accompanying the post.
"I knew that even though our legs were so f***ed up today that we could do the same workout again, and even more, despite feeling worse…and we did!"
Day four of Hell Week saw Tony going through the ringer on the assault bike, which is often used for high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workouts.
Ferguson looked visibly shattered on the bike next to Goggins as he squeezed out every last drop of effort.
The UFC star moaned and groaned as Goggins fired him up from the bike across from him.
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"Ahh s***!", Ferguson exclaimed repeatedly as Goggins laughed, appearing to take great pleasure from his trainee's pain.
"When you train a person like Tony, you have to find their limit and once you find it, that is when you have to push them way beyond it." Goggins commented. "The challenge with Tony is that his limit is way the f*** out there because of his ability to handle so much pain.
GET AFTER IT
"What you are seeing in this video is a man that has been through four days of a no-s*** hell week. This isn’t like a football two-a-days or some wrestling camp bull****.
"There is a lesson to be learned here. He’s comfortable with you all seeing what he is going through because this is the exact kind of dedication it takes to reach greatness. Hard work is never pretty!"
Hell Week eventually came to an end with Goggins congratulating Ferguson for being the first person to ever successfully complete one of his infamous Hell Week's without quitting.
"Tony finished Hell Week today," Goggins wrote in an Instagram video of the week's tasks. "I have had many people try yet he is the first one to get through it.
" I have had a lot of great athletes over the years want to train with me but for one reason or another, 'something'
always miraculously comes up so they can’t complete it.
"I broke El Cucuy on Day One, or at least I thought I did. I had him deep in the hurt locker and figured the questions were soon to be coming. I told Kish [Goggins wife] late that night 'this motherf***** is done!'
"But, I was wrong. He woke up on Day Two even more fired up to go. There was never a question asked. His response was always the same, 'OK, Coach.'
"I was there for the rebirth of El Cucuy.
"It happened somewhere on the Jacob’s Ladder at around 11:11pm. I knew then that the torture I was putting him through was no longer torture.
"A lot of people ask me if I think he will win his next fight- I don’t have the first damn clue about that. That’s up to Tony. What I do know is that the man who walks into the octagon on December 16th will be a deeply changed man.
"Sometimes when the fight is near, the warrior must go back home because home is where the hell began.
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"My friends, Tony is home! Hello darkness my old friend."