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Main event-
Hyd.-women’s atom weight title match: “Unstoppable” Angela Lee vs. Istela Nunes
Co-main event-
Hyd.-welterweight title match: “Funky” Ben Askren vs. Agilan “The Alligator” Thani
Grappling super-fight: “Tobikan Judan” Shinya Aoki vs. Garry Tonon
Undercard-
Hyd.-welterweight bout: Luis “Sapo” Santos vs. Zebaztian Kadestam
Hyd.-strawweight bout: “Kru Rong” Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke vs. Adrian Matheis
Hyd.-flyweight bout: Anatpong “Mak” Bunrad vs. Geje “Gravity” Eustaquio II
Hyd.-lightweight bout: Amir Khan vs. Rajinder “Knockout” Singh Meena
Hyd.-women’s strawweight bout: Tiffany “Soul-Crusher” Teo vs. Rebecca Heintzman-Rozewski
Hyd.-women’s atomweight bout: Rika “Tiny Doll” Ishige vs. Nita Dia
Hyd.-152-lb catchweight bout: “Rock Man” Lei Chen vs. Jeremy “Predator” Meciaz
I just wanna say I included a very in-depth bio of Askren, which took up a lot of space, but everything else is pretty modest, albeit detailed.
In ONE Championship™’s first of their 2017 bi-annual stacked Singapore cards, arguably the organization’s biggest star in Angela Lee is making the second defense of her atomweight title against Brazilian Muay Thai champion and possible lesbian Istela Nunes.
Instead of talking about that fight just yet, I wanna talk about the most interesting and controversial fight of the card. In the co-main event, one of the best welterweights in the world and a former top-5 welterweight (who only lost that ranking due to a combination of polarizing reactions to ONE’s new weigh-in protocols, some unwanted periods of inactivity due to circumstances that were beyond his control that I’ll go into later, and his recent opponents not having as much of a point value as others, despite being very good fighters) in “Funky” Ben Askren is looking to make the first official defense of his welterweight title against unheralded Malaysian welterweight opponent and former MIMMA champion in Agilan “The Alligator” Thani. Askren’s also been one of the driving forces behind the decision to have ONE Championship™ break mold and broadcast this event on FloCombat, instead of on their website. So if you want to watch it, sign up to FloCombat and check it out.
I didn’t bother including anything about Askren’s career between him semi-retiring from wrasslin’ until he joined ONE, since that took up a lot of space, it’s not really as interesting as his wrestling career and the details that’ve surrounded him since leaving Bellator, and everyone already knows it anyways.
In biographical whatevers, Ben Askren…
Hyd.-women’s atom weight title match: “Unstoppable” Angela Lee vs. Istela Nunes
Co-main event-
Hyd.-welterweight title match: “Funky” Ben Askren vs. Agilan “The Alligator” Thani
Grappling super-fight: “Tobikan Judan” Shinya Aoki vs. Garry Tonon
Undercard-
Hyd.-welterweight bout: Luis “Sapo” Santos vs. Zebaztian Kadestam
Hyd.-strawweight bout: “Kru Rong” Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke vs. Adrian Matheis
Hyd.-flyweight bout: Anatpong “Mak” Bunrad vs. Geje “Gravity” Eustaquio II
Hyd.-lightweight bout: Amir Khan vs. Rajinder “Knockout” Singh Meena
Hyd.-women’s strawweight bout: Tiffany “Soul-Crusher” Teo vs. Rebecca Heintzman-Rozewski
Hyd.-women’s atomweight bout: Rika “Tiny Doll” Ishige vs. Nita Dia
Hyd.-152-lb catchweight bout: “Rock Man” Lei Chen vs. Jeremy “Predator” Meciaz
I just wanna say I included a very in-depth bio of Askren, which took up a lot of space, but everything else is pretty modest, albeit detailed.
In ONE Championship™’s first of their 2017 bi-annual stacked Singapore cards, arguably the organization’s biggest star in Angela Lee is making the second defense of her atomweight title against Brazilian Muay Thai champion and possible lesbian Istela Nunes.
Instead of talking about that fight just yet, I wanna talk about the most interesting and controversial fight of the card. In the co-main event, one of the best welterweights in the world and a former top-5 welterweight (who only lost that ranking due to a combination of polarizing reactions to ONE’s new weigh-in protocols, some unwanted periods of inactivity due to circumstances that were beyond his control that I’ll go into later, and his recent opponents not having as much of a point value as others, despite being very good fighters) in “Funky” Ben Askren is looking to make the first official defense of his welterweight title against unheralded Malaysian welterweight opponent and former MIMMA champion in Agilan “The Alligator” Thani. Askren’s also been one of the driving forces behind the decision to have ONE Championship™ break mold and broadcast this event on FloCombat, instead of on their website. So if you want to watch it, sign up to FloCombat and check it out.
I didn’t bother including anything about Askren’s career between him semi-retiring from wrasslin’ until he joined ONE, since that took up a lot of space, it’s not really as interesting as his wrestling career and the details that’ve surrounded him since leaving Bellator, and everyone already knows it anyways.
In biographical whatevers, Ben Askren…
… was born in the mid-1980’s in the great state of Wisconsin. The real interesting thing about Askren is that he holds the distinction of being one of the greatest, most-accomplished wrestlers to ever enter into the sport of shootfighting on a serious level.
After winning 12 fights in a row, including nine in a row in Bellator en route to a championship belt, three very dominant victories in a row over very solid opponents, a victory over a top-15 opponent in Jay Hieron, showing continued improvement and promise all the while with no sign of slowing down, and holding an almost-unanimous top-5 ranking in the world, Askren, long declaring himself as the best welterweight in the world and having his dream of being the #1 fighter in the world, knew that the only place he could do that was in the UFC. So, after asking then-Bellator head Bjorn Rebney for his release, which was granted, negotiations began. I went into detail about the specifics of that whole situation, but spoilered it if you aren’t in the mood for it.
Anyways, after signing with ONE, Askren made his debut at the first of ONE’s two cards in Singapore in 2014.
In another degree of unfortune-ality connected to this fight, it was at this point when Askren’s series of unfortunate circumstances began to occur.
Henry Cejudo might hold the highest single-accomplishment with his Olympic gold medal, and guys like Yoel Romero and Matt Lindland with their silver medals at the Olympics, among a myriad of other wrasslin’ accomplishments, rank up there, and other guys like Daniel Cormier who‘re very accomplished despite not medaling at the Olympics, but Askren’s extremely-high grouping of accomplishments in the fine art of using your body to control other people give him a very good place in the discussion of being the best wrassler to ever take this sport seriously.
Beginning his wrestling career at the tender, sexual age of 6, Ben was put into wrasslin’ much like many children are: by their fathers. Though he didn’t take it too seriously until he started puberty (he doesn’t say that, but he says how he started taking wrestling seriously once he entered the 6th grade, so, you know, the rush of hormones entering the body at that time probably isn’t much of a coincidence), that was when things really started to turn around, and he has the added benefit of starting the sport young and having a family and group of family-friends who are wrestling-aficionados themselves to support him. They all even pooled their resources together and turned the family basement into a wrasslin’ ring and workout room just so Ben could train even more, most importantly in the off-season.
Ironically, Ben’s said that he really dislikes it when parents put their children into serious wrestling training when they’re young like that, since he not only has a kid himself, but he runs the Askren Wrestling Academy with his brother (another accomplished wrassler) and teaches the kids classes and goes to a lot of children’s tournaments, seeing the hell the kids are going through and the complete lack of enjoyment they’re getting from what is supposed to be a very enjoyable experience, jokingly equating the whole thing to child abuse. If I know this right, he doesn’t even allow kids that young to take classes at his academy, or at least doesn’t allow them to participate in tournaments. Anyways, the fact that Askren feels like that and he started wrasslin’ at 6 is just a little ironic to me.
Askren’s heritage with- and passion for the sport of wrasslin’ ended up paying dividends, as he ended up becoming a two-time state wrestling champion in Wisconsin, runner-up in the high school nationals (it’s not as prestigious of a tournament as the college nationals, just because of a lot of challenges with consolidating high schools across the country compared to colleges, but still, a good accomplishment) and a lot of other pre-college accomplishments. Getting a good scholarship to Missouri off of his wrasslin’ accomplishments-- it’s EXTREMELY likely he didn’t get a full-ride, which’s how a lot of people think scholarships work [that you get an athletic scholarship to a college means you didn’t have to take out any student loans or use any college savings or even get a part-time job to help pay for things], especially since wrestling isn’t really a full-ride kind of sport like football and basketball and baseball are-- he continued his wrestling career in Columbia at the University of Missouri, and it was there that his career really began to take off. One of the interesting things about high school wrestling is something that Ben’s talked about before: the true hallmark of a great high school wrestler is the ability to wrestler more-fully-developed people after you exit high school, and that was what Askren was able to do. He got a great accomplishment in his freshman year as he became the runner-up in the 2004 NCAA Division-1 championships and won the Big 12 tournament (a very good accomplishment.) He matched this accomplishment by becoming the runner-up in his sophomore year’s NCAA Division-1 championship tournament, and become the runner-up in that year‘s Big 12 tournament and won the gold medal at the 2005 Pan-Am games, but it was after this that Askren’s career really started to turn a point. Going undefeated in his junior and senior years in college, Askren won 87 matches in a row-- which, unless he’s been usurped, ranks as the 4th best undefeated streak in NCAA history-- and set the national record with 18 pins in a row in that time. I believe he also holds one of the highest finishing percentages in wrestling history, too-- if you don’t know what that means, you can win a wrestling match in two ways: by points or by a pin (and I think by achieving a serious point advantage before the time‘s expired, which constitutes a finish if I‘m not mistaken), and Askren had a lot of the latter in his collegiate career. During this time, Askren won, of course, two NCAA Division-1 championships and two Big 12 tournaments, won the Dan Hodge trophy for both of those years-- that’s basically code for Wrestler of the Year-- and a bunch of other wrestler of the year accolades, despite those ones not giving out trophies. I don’t think any other wrestler in this sport that wasn’t a one-off has won the Dan Hodge trophy, much less twice in a row. He ended his college career with a 153-7 record, pinning over 2/3rds of his opponents, and being one of only a handful of collegiate wrestlers to ever have gotten to the NCAA championships four years in a row.
Though he graduated, Askren wasn’t done with wrestling yet and his accomplishments with wrestling were awarded when he was given a coaching slot at the University of Missouri immediately after graduating. Spending the next few years as a coach in Columbia, Askren’s time was split between teaching wrestling and actually wrestling, and he set his sights on the next plateau: the Olympics. Competing in some international wrestling tournaments in the interim, when Askren’s time finally came in the U.S. trials, he won the two-day tournament filled with some of the best wrestlers in the entire country to take the final preparatory step in actualizing his wrestling dream: to win an Olympic gold medal.
On August 12, 2008, Ben made his Olympic wrestling debut (or not, depending on whether or not the trials qualify as the Olympics or not) and won by pinning his opponent. In his next match, though, his dreams were crushed as he lost via points to Cuban opponent Ivan Fudora.
Feeling pretty disheartened afterwards, which is understandable, Askren decided to follow another dream. Rather than spend the next four years working on his wrestling game just for another shot at winning a gold medal, he decided to pursue a career in fighting, and made his debut six months after the Olympics in February, 2009, after only training for a few months.
Askren’s wrestling career was marked by not only his accomplishments, but by his rarely-seen, idiosyncratic style of wrestling. Askren’s known for being exceptionally skilled in the style of wrestling known as “funk”. From what I understand, “funk” is a style of wrestling where the wrestler both puts himself in precarious situations in order to capitalize on his opponent’s openings which would otherwise be unavailable, and where you set up a series of chains and your style is built around your opponent countering what you do and countering their counters. I think the two gifs that explain this style best is the famous gif of Askren in college where he defends a rear-single-leg and ankle pick by dropping down and standing on his head to get an inverted leg-lace takedown. The other one is much simpler, but it’s against Dan Hornbuckle in the finals of his Bellator tournament, when Askren shoots in on a single-leg and only has hold of Dan’s ankle, and Dan stands up and tries to hop out, but Askren still holds on to the leg as they‘re standing up, and uses it and Dan‘s one-leg-edness to close the distance and get real deep on a single, then step in and turn his hips to trip Hornbuckle to the ground. You can see it here: http://cdn2.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1033393/askren2_medium.gif
Another thing about this style of wrestling is that it gives a lot of people who have a natural talent for it a great deal of skill with something called “riding”. Riding your opponent in wrestling’s a very tricky concept-- I don’t even understand it completely-- but, from what I understand, it’s about being able to control your opponent by applying pressure and using strength in positions that are outside of the traditional stem of grappling positions like full-guard, half-guard, back-control, side-control, mount, and north-south position, and without doing the conventional things to achieve this control like going chest-to-chest and getting an underhook. It’s looked down upon in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and a lot of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu teachers advise against it, saying things like how it’s a bad way of achieving control and it gives way too many openings, which’s why the ride isn’t very common and a lot of grapplers end up parroting their sentiments, but wrestlers, especially catch wrestling guys and Japanese fellas who’ve competed in Combat wrestling and guys like Askren would strongly disagree, and their accomplishments and skill in the field of grappling offer a lot of support to contradict those notions.
The reason I cut off to say this stuff is that it was all apparent in the beginning of Askren’s MMA career. The counter-counter-style takedown game, the chain-wrestling skill, the ability to exude a ridiculous amount of control from very unorthodox positions through using the rarely-seen skill that is the ride, it was all there. His first three fights are on Youtube if you don’t believe me; check ‘em out. Though he struggled with strikes from the onset, much like a lot of wrestlers who’ve joined this sport, he quickly developed a comfort with striking and with things like distancing, showing his work ethic from wrestling and his motivation to improve has carried over.
Beginning his wrestling career at the tender, sexual age of 6, Ben was put into wrasslin’ much like many children are: by their fathers. Though he didn’t take it too seriously until he started puberty (he doesn’t say that, but he says how he started taking wrestling seriously once he entered the 6th grade, so, you know, the rush of hormones entering the body at that time probably isn’t much of a coincidence), that was when things really started to turn around, and he has the added benefit of starting the sport young and having a family and group of family-friends who are wrestling-aficionados themselves to support him. They all even pooled their resources together and turned the family basement into a wrasslin’ ring and workout room just so Ben could train even more, most importantly in the off-season.
Ironically, Ben’s said that he really dislikes it when parents put their children into serious wrestling training when they’re young like that, since he not only has a kid himself, but he runs the Askren Wrestling Academy with his brother (another accomplished wrassler) and teaches the kids classes and goes to a lot of children’s tournaments, seeing the hell the kids are going through and the complete lack of enjoyment they’re getting from what is supposed to be a very enjoyable experience, jokingly equating the whole thing to child abuse. If I know this right, he doesn’t even allow kids that young to take classes at his academy, or at least doesn’t allow them to participate in tournaments. Anyways, the fact that Askren feels like that and he started wrasslin’ at 6 is just a little ironic to me.
Askren’s heritage with- and passion for the sport of wrasslin’ ended up paying dividends, as he ended up becoming a two-time state wrestling champion in Wisconsin, runner-up in the high school nationals (it’s not as prestigious of a tournament as the college nationals, just because of a lot of challenges with consolidating high schools across the country compared to colleges, but still, a good accomplishment) and a lot of other pre-college accomplishments. Getting a good scholarship to Missouri off of his wrasslin’ accomplishments-- it’s EXTREMELY likely he didn’t get a full-ride, which’s how a lot of people think scholarships work [that you get an athletic scholarship to a college means you didn’t have to take out any student loans or use any college savings or even get a part-time job to help pay for things], especially since wrestling isn’t really a full-ride kind of sport like football and basketball and baseball are-- he continued his wrestling career in Columbia at the University of Missouri, and it was there that his career really began to take off. One of the interesting things about high school wrestling is something that Ben’s talked about before: the true hallmark of a great high school wrestler is the ability to wrestler more-fully-developed people after you exit high school, and that was what Askren was able to do. He got a great accomplishment in his freshman year as he became the runner-up in the 2004 NCAA Division-1 championships and won the Big 12 tournament (a very good accomplishment.) He matched this accomplishment by becoming the runner-up in his sophomore year’s NCAA Division-1 championship tournament, and become the runner-up in that year‘s Big 12 tournament and won the gold medal at the 2005 Pan-Am games, but it was after this that Askren’s career really started to turn a point. Going undefeated in his junior and senior years in college, Askren won 87 matches in a row-- which, unless he’s been usurped, ranks as the 4th best undefeated streak in NCAA history-- and set the national record with 18 pins in a row in that time. I believe he also holds one of the highest finishing percentages in wrestling history, too-- if you don’t know what that means, you can win a wrestling match in two ways: by points or by a pin (and I think by achieving a serious point advantage before the time‘s expired, which constitutes a finish if I‘m not mistaken), and Askren had a lot of the latter in his collegiate career. During this time, Askren won, of course, two NCAA Division-1 championships and two Big 12 tournaments, won the Dan Hodge trophy for both of those years-- that’s basically code for Wrestler of the Year-- and a bunch of other wrestler of the year accolades, despite those ones not giving out trophies. I don’t think any other wrestler in this sport that wasn’t a one-off has won the Dan Hodge trophy, much less twice in a row. He ended his college career with a 153-7 record, pinning over 2/3rds of his opponents, and being one of only a handful of collegiate wrestlers to ever have gotten to the NCAA championships four years in a row.
Though he graduated, Askren wasn’t done with wrestling yet and his accomplishments with wrestling were awarded when he was given a coaching slot at the University of Missouri immediately after graduating. Spending the next few years as a coach in Columbia, Askren’s time was split between teaching wrestling and actually wrestling, and he set his sights on the next plateau: the Olympics. Competing in some international wrestling tournaments in the interim, when Askren’s time finally came in the U.S. trials, he won the two-day tournament filled with some of the best wrestlers in the entire country to take the final preparatory step in actualizing his wrestling dream: to win an Olympic gold medal.
On August 12, 2008, Ben made his Olympic wrestling debut (or not, depending on whether or not the trials qualify as the Olympics or not) and won by pinning his opponent. In his next match, though, his dreams were crushed as he lost via points to Cuban opponent Ivan Fudora.
Feeling pretty disheartened afterwards, which is understandable, Askren decided to follow another dream. Rather than spend the next four years working on his wrestling game just for another shot at winning a gold medal, he decided to pursue a career in fighting, and made his debut six months after the Olympics in February, 2009, after only training for a few months.
Askren’s wrestling career was marked by not only his accomplishments, but by his rarely-seen, idiosyncratic style of wrestling. Askren’s known for being exceptionally skilled in the style of wrestling known as “funk”. From what I understand, “funk” is a style of wrestling where the wrestler both puts himself in precarious situations in order to capitalize on his opponent’s openings which would otherwise be unavailable, and where you set up a series of chains and your style is built around your opponent countering what you do and countering their counters. I think the two gifs that explain this style best is the famous gif of Askren in college where he defends a rear-single-leg and ankle pick by dropping down and standing on his head to get an inverted leg-lace takedown. The other one is much simpler, but it’s against Dan Hornbuckle in the finals of his Bellator tournament, when Askren shoots in on a single-leg and only has hold of Dan’s ankle, and Dan stands up and tries to hop out, but Askren still holds on to the leg as they‘re standing up, and uses it and Dan‘s one-leg-edness to close the distance and get real deep on a single, then step in and turn his hips to trip Hornbuckle to the ground. You can see it here: http://cdn2.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1033393/askren2_medium.gif
Another thing about this style of wrestling is that it gives a lot of people who have a natural talent for it a great deal of skill with something called “riding”. Riding your opponent in wrestling’s a very tricky concept-- I don’t even understand it completely-- but, from what I understand, it’s about being able to control your opponent by applying pressure and using strength in positions that are outside of the traditional stem of grappling positions like full-guard, half-guard, back-control, side-control, mount, and north-south position, and without doing the conventional things to achieve this control like going chest-to-chest and getting an underhook. It’s looked down upon in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and a lot of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu teachers advise against it, saying things like how it’s a bad way of achieving control and it gives way too many openings, which’s why the ride isn’t very common and a lot of grapplers end up parroting their sentiments, but wrestlers, especially catch wrestling guys and Japanese fellas who’ve competed in Combat wrestling and guys like Askren would strongly disagree, and their accomplishments and skill in the field of grappling offer a lot of support to contradict those notions.
The reason I cut off to say this stuff is that it was all apparent in the beginning of Askren’s MMA career. The counter-counter-style takedown game, the chain-wrestling skill, the ability to exude a ridiculous amount of control from very unorthodox positions through using the rarely-seen skill that is the ride, it was all there. His first three fights are on Youtube if you don’t believe me; check ‘em out. Though he struggled with strikes from the onset, much like a lot of wrestlers who’ve joined this sport, he quickly developed a comfort with striking and with things like distancing, showing his work ethic from wrestling and his motivation to improve has carried over.
After winning 12 fights in a row, including nine in a row in Bellator en route to a championship belt, three very dominant victories in a row over very solid opponents, a victory over a top-15 opponent in Jay Hieron, showing continued improvement and promise all the while with no sign of slowing down, and holding an almost-unanimous top-5 ranking in the world, Askren, long declaring himself as the best welterweight in the world and having his dream of being the #1 fighter in the world, knew that the only place he could do that was in the UFC. So, after asking then-Bellator head Bjorn Rebney for his release, which was granted, negotiations began. I went into detail about the specifics of that whole situation, but spoilered it if you aren’t in the mood for it.
The important thing to note here, though is just how much the UFC was anti-Bellator during the 2013-14 years. They saw that Bellator was on the rise, they had taken their old spot on Spike and gotten a big boost in having a TV deal, and they did just about everything they could to make it out that Bellator was such a low-level organization filled with such low-level talent that they weren’t even worth watching. The biggest example of this was probably the way they handled Lyman Good in his entry fight in the Ultimate Fighter in early-2014. They knew that Lyman Good had a susceptibility to wrestling and, that season being at middleweight and Lyman being a welterweight, they gave him a stylistic nightmare in the get-into-the-house fight. Faced against a large middleweight with a solid amateur wrestling background, Lyman was taken down and controlled for two rounds en route to a decision loss and was evicted from the Ultimate Fighter before he even got into the house, and Dana White spent the entire fight just talking shit about Bellator and saying, “Pfft, this guy is the champion of Bellator and this is how he fights? Pfft, what an overrated organization. Just shows how much they suck.” As though this wasn’t something they planned from the beginning just to prove a Machiavellian point.
If there’s an even bigger example of just how anti-Bellator the UFC was at this point, it’s how Ben Askren’s release from Bellator was handled. Having stated for a while now that he was the best welterweight in the world, how the fighters in the UFC were terrible compared to him, how he’d make GSP his girlfriend (I believe was his exact quote), and even taking shots at Dana White, Askren had received a lot of attention and the ire of the UFC. Though he would’ve been a great signee, Askren’s demands were simple: he wanted an immediate title shot in his debut [or enough payment to make up for that should he not receive it-- that wasn‘t what was said, but that‘s almost always the unspoken aspect of contract negotiations]. And the UFC didn’t want to do this; not only because it would send out a message to other fighters that the chilling-effect-dictatorship manner of control they have over their fighters can be fought, but because agreeing to his demands would solidify his worth and it would send the message across the world that the UFC fears the most: that the fighters outside of the UFC are extremely good, with many of them at the level of the top guys in the UFC.
Because of this, negotiations went nowhere, and they ended when Dana White said that Askren’s accomplishments weren’t good enough to warrant a UFC contract and that he should “go to the WSOF if he wants to be in the UFC.” Which was ridiculous not only because Askren’s accomplishments were good enough to justify his demands-- especially since they gave Hector Lombard a gigantic contract and he wasn’t nearly as accomplished a Bellator champion as Askren was-- but because Dana White has nothing to do with the WSOF supposedly, so why is he telling him to go there to prove himself? Not even going into the stuff about how the UFC and the WSOF had a kind of pseudo-connection between their ownership that a lot of people just ignored at the time, that’s the kind of Machiavellian shit that is exactly why so many people have issue with the UFC, and why a lot of people with self-respect, like Askren, would refuse to put up with it. Regardless, the end result was Askren’s dreams of being the best welterweight in the world were crushed.
After a period of meandering, not knowing what to do with himself, Askren even considered retirement. If he’s not gonna be the best in the world, then, really, what’s he doing all this for? If he just wanted to test himself, he’d either pursue disc golf where he has a chance of being the best in the world or he’d even go back to wrestling, which’s his true passion. After receiving some offers from a lot of other promotions, he ultimately opted for the one that had the best financial promises: ONE FC (as it was called then), giving him 7 figures over the course of 6 fights, with more money being awarded with each additional victory from #1 on.
A lot of people wondered why he didn’t sign with the WSOF-- since that‘s where a lot of ranking-obsessed people wanted him to go, since he could fight Palhares, Jake Shields and Jon Fitch there (which were the only reasons they wanted him in the WSOF, to fight them), but Askren even talked about this shortly afterwards. In his own words:
“When I couldn't sign with the UFC, I think my goal of being Number 1 in the world went out the window. There's just no way of doing that at Welterweight without being in the UFC. I could go 50-0 and as long as it's outside the UFC, I'm not going to be Number 1. It's impossible. Even if I beat up Rousimar Palhares and Jon Fitch, I might move from Number 8 to Number 7? It's impossible at this point.”
That last line’s really the most interesting part of this. It shows just how little he really had to gain from going to the WSOF instead of ONE if it means he makes less money in exchange for competition with more point-value. He does it all and beats everyone that the WSOF has, and he goes from #8 to #7. Not even necessarily better opponents than he could get anywhere else (since Palhares got knocked out by an unheralded Norwegian a short while ago, showing that there‘re a lot of guys outside of the top-rankings that can hang with the guys with more point-value), just guys who give him slightly more points.
Besides that, a lot of people talked about how he could’ve finished out his contract and gone to the UFC afterwards, but… that’s not really a guarantee. Like, at all. He also could’ve been in the WSOF, finished out his contract, and the UFC still wouldn’t have signed him; that’s just as likely as him signing to the WSOF and the UFC taking him as soon as they could. It took the WSOF folding (or whatever; they‘ve had to change their format and sell so many of their assets and had to share arenas they were having title-defenses in with girl’s high school volley ball tournaments, so they might as well have folded) over three years after all of this for their champions to transition to the UFC like people were saying would’ve happened overnight had Askren joined the WSOF. Before that happened, the only champs that transitioned to the UFC were of divisions they ended up closing [like JAG and women’s strawweight and Bibulatov and flyweight], and even then it hasn’t been a clean sweep of every one of their champs and contenders. If Blagoy Ivanov, Andre Harrison and Fitch all sign to the UFC (-again for Fitch), along with most of their top contenders and some of their former champs (like Alice-Shawn-Dray and Palmer), there might be a point, but that hasn’t happened, and it took some unforeseen-three-years-ago circumstances for it to even get to that point.
Unfortunately, a lot of people either don’t know- or refuse to even acknowledge all of this stuff and take the UFC’s official version of what happened as scripture, and act like Askren was the one who was being unreasonable throughout all of this. That he should’ve signed with the WSOF anyways because rankings are all that matter (whether they’ll admit that rankings are all they care about or not.) And a lot of ‘em have such a little understanding of not only what sportsmanship is but what business is that they act like making good money outside of the UFC is a poor cousin because he’s not ranked and go like, “Eh, at least his paycheck is the silver lining to this…” Being passive-aggressive and giving backhanded compliments and shit. It’s just frustrating…
If there’s an even bigger example of just how anti-Bellator the UFC was at this point, it’s how Ben Askren’s release from Bellator was handled. Having stated for a while now that he was the best welterweight in the world, how the fighters in the UFC were terrible compared to him, how he’d make GSP his girlfriend (I believe was his exact quote), and even taking shots at Dana White, Askren had received a lot of attention and the ire of the UFC. Though he would’ve been a great signee, Askren’s demands were simple: he wanted an immediate title shot in his debut [or enough payment to make up for that should he not receive it-- that wasn‘t what was said, but that‘s almost always the unspoken aspect of contract negotiations]. And the UFC didn’t want to do this; not only because it would send out a message to other fighters that the chilling-effect-dictatorship manner of control they have over their fighters can be fought, but because agreeing to his demands would solidify his worth and it would send the message across the world that the UFC fears the most: that the fighters outside of the UFC are extremely good, with many of them at the level of the top guys in the UFC.
Because of this, negotiations went nowhere, and they ended when Dana White said that Askren’s accomplishments weren’t good enough to warrant a UFC contract and that he should “go to the WSOF if he wants to be in the UFC.” Which was ridiculous not only because Askren’s accomplishments were good enough to justify his demands-- especially since they gave Hector Lombard a gigantic contract and he wasn’t nearly as accomplished a Bellator champion as Askren was-- but because Dana White has nothing to do with the WSOF supposedly, so why is he telling him to go there to prove himself? Not even going into the stuff about how the UFC and the WSOF had a kind of pseudo-connection between their ownership that a lot of people just ignored at the time, that’s the kind of Machiavellian shit that is exactly why so many people have issue with the UFC, and why a lot of people with self-respect, like Askren, would refuse to put up with it. Regardless, the end result was Askren’s dreams of being the best welterweight in the world were crushed.
After a period of meandering, not knowing what to do with himself, Askren even considered retirement. If he’s not gonna be the best in the world, then, really, what’s he doing all this for? If he just wanted to test himself, he’d either pursue disc golf where he has a chance of being the best in the world or he’d even go back to wrestling, which’s his true passion. After receiving some offers from a lot of other promotions, he ultimately opted for the one that had the best financial promises: ONE FC (as it was called then), giving him 7 figures over the course of 6 fights, with more money being awarded with each additional victory from #1 on.
A lot of people wondered why he didn’t sign with the WSOF-- since that‘s where a lot of ranking-obsessed people wanted him to go, since he could fight Palhares, Jake Shields and Jon Fitch there (which were the only reasons they wanted him in the WSOF, to fight them), but Askren even talked about this shortly afterwards. In his own words:
“When I couldn't sign with the UFC, I think my goal of being Number 1 in the world went out the window. There's just no way of doing that at Welterweight without being in the UFC. I could go 50-0 and as long as it's outside the UFC, I'm not going to be Number 1. It's impossible. Even if I beat up Rousimar Palhares and Jon Fitch, I might move from Number 8 to Number 7? It's impossible at this point.”
That last line’s really the most interesting part of this. It shows just how little he really had to gain from going to the WSOF instead of ONE if it means he makes less money in exchange for competition with more point-value. He does it all and beats everyone that the WSOF has, and he goes from #8 to #7. Not even necessarily better opponents than he could get anywhere else (since Palhares got knocked out by an unheralded Norwegian a short while ago, showing that there‘re a lot of guys outside of the top-rankings that can hang with the guys with more point-value), just guys who give him slightly more points.
Besides that, a lot of people talked about how he could’ve finished out his contract and gone to the UFC afterwards, but… that’s not really a guarantee. Like, at all. He also could’ve been in the WSOF, finished out his contract, and the UFC still wouldn’t have signed him; that’s just as likely as him signing to the WSOF and the UFC taking him as soon as they could. It took the WSOF folding (or whatever; they‘ve had to change their format and sell so many of their assets and had to share arenas they were having title-defenses in with girl’s high school volley ball tournaments, so they might as well have folded) over three years after all of this for their champions to transition to the UFC like people were saying would’ve happened overnight had Askren joined the WSOF. Before that happened, the only champs that transitioned to the UFC were of divisions they ended up closing [like JAG and women’s strawweight and Bibulatov and flyweight], and even then it hasn’t been a clean sweep of every one of their champs and contenders. If Blagoy Ivanov, Andre Harrison and Fitch all sign to the UFC (-again for Fitch), along with most of their top contenders and some of their former champs (like Alice-Shawn-Dray and Palmer), there might be a point, but that hasn’t happened, and it took some unforeseen-three-years-ago circumstances for it to even get to that point.
Unfortunately, a lot of people either don’t know- or refuse to even acknowledge all of this stuff and take the UFC’s official version of what happened as scripture, and act like Askren was the one who was being unreasonable throughout all of this. That he should’ve signed with the WSOF anyways because rankings are all that matter (whether they’ll admit that rankings are all they care about or not.) And a lot of ‘em have such a little understanding of not only what sportsmanship is but what business is that they act like making good money outside of the UFC is a poor cousin because he’s not ranked and go like, “Eh, at least his paycheck is the silver lining to this…” Being passive-aggressive and giving backhanded compliments and shit. It’s just frustrating…
Anyways, after signing with ONE, Askren made his debut at the first of ONE’s two cards in Singapore in 2014.
He went up against 12-2 accomplished Azerbaijani wrestler/Sambist, Bakhtiyar Abbasov, who was on a 10-fight winning streak and had 11 finishes in his career. After a momentary scare when Abbasov took down Askren in the first 5 seconds of the fight, Askren reversed position and it was business as usual, transitioning, riding his opponent, and eventually getting an arm-triangle choke at the end of the first round.
Askren was given a step-up in his next fight, against ZST veteran, the inaugural ONE welterweight champion and the first Japanese opponent of Ben’s career, the 11-1-2 accomplished Karatéka with 10 knockouts, Nobutatsu Suzuki.
Beginning his career as a Karatéka, Suzuki eventually decided to give MMA a try and debuted in ZST, which has always had a penchant for attracting more idiosyncratic fighting styles than just about any other shootfighting organization in the world. After getting 9 knockout victories between 2005 and 2011, including victories over future ROAD FC title challenger Jeon Uh-Jin, scrappy slugger Yojiro Uchimura, 90-fight veteran and former Pancrase contender Osami Shibuya, and Lithuanian HERO’s veteran known for his fight with Sakuraba (during which he nearly knocked out the Japanese legend) Kestutis Smirnovas, Suzuki was matched up with the highly-decorated Japanese fighter and current UFC fighter K-Taro Nakamura at the inaugural returning-Vale Tudo Japan card in 2012. After a competitive feeling-out period, K-Taro eventually tagged Suzuki with some hard jabs and hooks off of his very powerful lead-right hand, got a takedown and transitioned to Suzuki’s back, where K-Taro sunk in one of his patented rear-chokes to finish the fight in usual K-Taro fashion.
After this, Suzuki signed with ONE and was matched up with American legend, former top-10 middleweight and Pride, UFC, Strikeforce, and Bellator veteran Phil Baroni. In probably the biggest victory of his career-- not necessarily his best victory, but Baroni’s a more well-known name than anyone else he’s fought-- Suzuki’s hard-hitting Karaté to land a hard front-kick followed by a barrage of knees and a pair of hooks to finish the American fighter.
A year later, Suzuki was matched up with the skilled, accomplished American grappler Brock Larson. Larson, entering the fight with a 37-7 record, on a four-fight winning streak, coming off a victory over Melvin Manhoef at middleweight, coming from a wrestling background and having very strong grappling skills, and holding victories over K-Taro, Shannon Ritch, John Alessio, Mike Pyle, Luke Caudillo, DeMarques Johnson, and Carlo Prater, was a good favorite going into the fight with Suzuki, especially considering this was perhaps Larson’s best chance to get what had eluded him for his entire career: a championship belt.
Suzuki rose to the challenge, however, and stuffed just about all of Larson’s takedowns, used his Karaté to cut off Larson and land a lot of front-kicks to the body from a safe distance, even dropped him at one point, and picked up a handy unanimous decision over the American to win the inaugural welterweight belt in ONE Championship™.
Unfortunately for Suzuki, his title-reign was short-lived, as, at the debut ONE card in Dubai, he had his first title-defense against Ben Askren. And Askren got a quick takedown when Suzuki lifted his leg for a feint step-in knee, and quickly got a side-ride (probably the worst position you can be in at the beginning of a fight) and landed I think about a hundred punches before the referee stepped in to give Askren a TKO victory. And the quickest victory of his career.
Askren was given a step-up in his next fight, against ZST veteran, the inaugural ONE welterweight champion and the first Japanese opponent of Ben’s career, the 11-1-2 accomplished Karatéka with 10 knockouts, Nobutatsu Suzuki.
Beginning his career as a Karatéka, Suzuki eventually decided to give MMA a try and debuted in ZST, which has always had a penchant for attracting more idiosyncratic fighting styles than just about any other shootfighting organization in the world. After getting 9 knockout victories between 2005 and 2011, including victories over future ROAD FC title challenger Jeon Uh-Jin, scrappy slugger Yojiro Uchimura, 90-fight veteran and former Pancrase contender Osami Shibuya, and Lithuanian HERO’s veteran known for his fight with Sakuraba (during which he nearly knocked out the Japanese legend) Kestutis Smirnovas, Suzuki was matched up with the highly-decorated Japanese fighter and current UFC fighter K-Taro Nakamura at the inaugural returning-Vale Tudo Japan card in 2012. After a competitive feeling-out period, K-Taro eventually tagged Suzuki with some hard jabs and hooks off of his very powerful lead-right hand, got a takedown and transitioned to Suzuki’s back, where K-Taro sunk in one of his patented rear-chokes to finish the fight in usual K-Taro fashion.
After this, Suzuki signed with ONE and was matched up with American legend, former top-10 middleweight and Pride, UFC, Strikeforce, and Bellator veteran Phil Baroni. In probably the biggest victory of his career-- not necessarily his best victory, but Baroni’s a more well-known name than anyone else he’s fought-- Suzuki’s hard-hitting Karaté to land a hard front-kick followed by a barrage of knees and a pair of hooks to finish the American fighter.
A year later, Suzuki was matched up with the skilled, accomplished American grappler Brock Larson. Larson, entering the fight with a 37-7 record, on a four-fight winning streak, coming off a victory over Melvin Manhoef at middleweight, coming from a wrestling background and having very strong grappling skills, and holding victories over K-Taro, Shannon Ritch, John Alessio, Mike Pyle, Luke Caudillo, DeMarques Johnson, and Carlo Prater, was a good favorite going into the fight with Suzuki, especially considering this was perhaps Larson’s best chance to get what had eluded him for his entire career: a championship belt.
Suzuki rose to the challenge, however, and stuffed just about all of Larson’s takedowns, used his Karaté to cut off Larson and land a lot of front-kicks to the body from a safe distance, even dropped him at one point, and picked up a handy unanimous decision over the American to win the inaugural welterweight belt in ONE Championship™.
Unfortunately for Suzuki, his title-reign was short-lived, as, at the debut ONE card in Dubai, he had his first title-defense against Ben Askren. And Askren got a quick takedown when Suzuki lifted his leg for a feint step-in knee, and quickly got a side-ride (probably the worst position you can be in at the beginning of a fight) and landed I think about a hundred punches before the referee stepped in to give Askren a TKO victory. And the quickest victory of his career.
Shortly after this fight, ONE’s next title challenger was ready in Luis “Sapo” Santos. Since he’s fighting on this card, I’ll save the details about him for then.
Being a Jūdō black belt, Sapo was able to do something during his fight with Askren that nobody else had been able to do: make his wrestling look feeble. Understanding what Funk wrestling is all about-- in that it’s about building upon chains and taking advantage of your opponents stance when they’ve countered your shot-- Sapo used his own countering style to counter a counter fighter, which’s one of the most effective things you can do against a counter fighter, and Sapo used his Jūdō to get big trips and throws on every shot that Askren attempted on him. In between that, he landed some real hard kicks to Ben‘s legs and body-- there weren’t too many of them, but they were hard enough looking to leave an imprint in your mind. Unfortunately for Ben, an inadvertent eyepoke prior to Askren completing his first takedown of the fight-- a double-leg against the cage, if my memory’s correct-- halted the bout around 3 minutes in. Askren was not pleased by this and said during his post-fight speech that not only did Sapo lie about not being able to speak English, but that he was exaggerating the eyepoke and he could’ve easily continued fighting, and he went so far as faking a language barrier to buy more time because he was afraid. And the hype surrounding the rematch had begun.
At the second 2015 Singapore card, controversy appeared as Sapo had missed weight by two pounds (ONE doesn’t have the one-pound allowance for their bouts like they have in other places) and, after a debate where officials considered whether or not they should cancel the fight or have him weigh in at 185 the next day (Asia has a history of taking weight in combat sports seriously), were advised by Askren to let him weigh in at 190. Sapo refused this-- more on that when I get to Sapo’s fight-- and the match was canceled.
This, combined with co-main event opponent Yago Bryan missing weight for his scheduled strawweight title-bout with then-champion Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke and the death of Jianbing Yang a month later, prompted ONE to inaugurate new rules to ban dehydration. More importantly, though, unfortunately for Ben, it led to a fight cancellation and him only having one fight in 2015. He got his show purse for the fight, though, so at least he got something out of it.
In April of 2016, Ben finally got a chance to have his first official title-defense. Unfortunately, it wasn’t against rival Luis Santos, since ONE weren’t sure if he could be trusted again to make weight, so the bout went to Russian Nikolay Aleksakhin. Aleksakhin, being a powerful, fast, well-rounded fighter with real good fleet-footed boxing skills, and who’d trained with the great Fedor Emelianenko, had won his ONE debut and was rushed into a title-match with Askren. Many people felt that it was a little too early for Nikolay, as, though he’d had some good victories, didn’t really have any that made him stick out, and his debut in ONE wasn’t super emphatic (he’d taken down and methodically controlled his Mongolian opponent for three rounds before getting a submission towards the end of the fight.) But he was an available welterweight, he could always win a few and get a rematch, and he was skilled enough to be a challenge.
Things were unfortunate for Askren again, though, as Nikolay missed weight by three pounds ~6 hours before the event for the now-hydrated-welterweight bout and the fight was changed to a non-title match.
Askren ended up struggling quite a bit with his Russian opponent, as, though he was able to get a lot of takedowns and execute his famous top-control and advanced to mount several times, he was unable to project the kind of offense on top that he’d been able to in his last four victories. He’d also tried to strike with his Russian opponent a lot more, and, though it was real cool to see because Askren not only showed a very idiosyncratic striking style (using a lot of open-handed parries and throwing a lot of front-kicks to the body) and showed a lot of skill with the moves he was using, it led to a moment in the fourth round I believe where Nikolay nearly finished Askren when, if my memory’s correct, he landed a high roundhouse kick and a punch that dropped Askren and he’d spent a little bit on top trying to finish him. That strike seemed to have tired out Askren a bit, too, and the last round or so of the fight wasn’t super-clean as far as victories go.
Askren ultimately won a 5-round decision against a good opponent, but he didn’t get another title-defense and the bout hadn’t gone as he would’ve preferred.
Things went from bad to worse for Askren for the rest of 2016, as Sapo was matched up with inaugural ONE middleweight champion Igor Svirid in a hydrated-welterweight bout that had title-implications for the winner, but the extremely lackadaisical nature of the fight, with neither fighter wanting to initiate and spending almost the entire fight circling each other and waiting for the other guy to do something, along with a knee injury to Sapo-- who won by landing some hard kicks and getting some Guida-esque top-control going at the end of the fight-- led to him not getting the long-awaited rematch. ONE not being able to get a suitable welterweight opponent in the organization during the time led to Askren not having another welterweight matchup for the year, but another thing was lined up. Askren and middleweight champion Vitaly Bigdash had agreed to a fight and Askren was hoping to become ONE’s first two-divisional champion when he was offered a shot at the middleweight title in the main-event of ONE’s sophomore appearance in the country of Thailand in December, 2016. It was gonna be a very good fight. The King of Thailand died at the end of October, though, and, with the country’s military dictatorship doing wacky things, they initiated a one-month long period of mourning where all television broadcasts, sporting events and musical concerts were banned in the country. So the card in Thailand was canceled, since it wouldn’t have given them nearly enough time to promote it, and, though it was rumored to have been re-scheduled the next month in Jakarta, Bigdash ultimately declined and decided he didn’t want to fight Askren anymore, so the title-shot went to Marcin Prachnio and, after an injury to Prachnio, to Aung La N Sang. And Askren had, yet again, had a fight canceled and had only fought once in the year.
People don’t know this history, though, and think that ONE had been refusing to give Askren fights and that Askren was not only regretting his decision to sign with ONE (which he’s said he hasn’t been, it’s just that the situations have been frustrating, which’s an understandable feeling), but that he doesn’t want to fight more than once a year and he’s a hypocrite for having the bravado he has while only fighting once a year. They act like outside forces haven’t been preventing matchups like they have been. Askren’s talked it over heavily with ONE, though, and, after getting a good offer from them to re-sign for another 6 fights, he’s been assured he’s gonna get to fight much more frequently for the rest of his career (which‘s rumored to end this year, since I‘m assuming he has other things he wants to pursue), and he’s getting the first chance to do that in 2017 against former Malaysian Invasion champion and welterweight prospect Agilan Thani.
Being a Jūdō black belt, Sapo was able to do something during his fight with Askren that nobody else had been able to do: make his wrestling look feeble. Understanding what Funk wrestling is all about-- in that it’s about building upon chains and taking advantage of your opponents stance when they’ve countered your shot-- Sapo used his own countering style to counter a counter fighter, which’s one of the most effective things you can do against a counter fighter, and Sapo used his Jūdō to get big trips and throws on every shot that Askren attempted on him. In between that, he landed some real hard kicks to Ben‘s legs and body-- there weren’t too many of them, but they were hard enough looking to leave an imprint in your mind. Unfortunately for Ben, an inadvertent eyepoke prior to Askren completing his first takedown of the fight-- a double-leg against the cage, if my memory’s correct-- halted the bout around 3 minutes in. Askren was not pleased by this and said during his post-fight speech that not only did Sapo lie about not being able to speak English, but that he was exaggerating the eyepoke and he could’ve easily continued fighting, and he went so far as faking a language barrier to buy more time because he was afraid. And the hype surrounding the rematch had begun.
At the second 2015 Singapore card, controversy appeared as Sapo had missed weight by two pounds (ONE doesn’t have the one-pound allowance for their bouts like they have in other places) and, after a debate where officials considered whether or not they should cancel the fight or have him weigh in at 185 the next day (Asia has a history of taking weight in combat sports seriously), were advised by Askren to let him weigh in at 190. Sapo refused this-- more on that when I get to Sapo’s fight-- and the match was canceled.
This, combined with co-main event opponent Yago Bryan missing weight for his scheduled strawweight title-bout with then-champion Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke and the death of Jianbing Yang a month later, prompted ONE to inaugurate new rules to ban dehydration. More importantly, though, unfortunately for Ben, it led to a fight cancellation and him only having one fight in 2015. He got his show purse for the fight, though, so at least he got something out of it.
In April of 2016, Ben finally got a chance to have his first official title-defense. Unfortunately, it wasn’t against rival Luis Santos, since ONE weren’t sure if he could be trusted again to make weight, so the bout went to Russian Nikolay Aleksakhin. Aleksakhin, being a powerful, fast, well-rounded fighter with real good fleet-footed boxing skills, and who’d trained with the great Fedor Emelianenko, had won his ONE debut and was rushed into a title-match with Askren. Many people felt that it was a little too early for Nikolay, as, though he’d had some good victories, didn’t really have any that made him stick out, and his debut in ONE wasn’t super emphatic (he’d taken down and methodically controlled his Mongolian opponent for three rounds before getting a submission towards the end of the fight.) But he was an available welterweight, he could always win a few and get a rematch, and he was skilled enough to be a challenge.
Things were unfortunate for Askren again, though, as Nikolay missed weight by three pounds ~6 hours before the event for the now-hydrated-welterweight bout and the fight was changed to a non-title match.
Askren ended up struggling quite a bit with his Russian opponent, as, though he was able to get a lot of takedowns and execute his famous top-control and advanced to mount several times, he was unable to project the kind of offense on top that he’d been able to in his last four victories. He’d also tried to strike with his Russian opponent a lot more, and, though it was real cool to see because Askren not only showed a very idiosyncratic striking style (using a lot of open-handed parries and throwing a lot of front-kicks to the body) and showed a lot of skill with the moves he was using, it led to a moment in the fourth round I believe where Nikolay nearly finished Askren when, if my memory’s correct, he landed a high roundhouse kick and a punch that dropped Askren and he’d spent a little bit on top trying to finish him. That strike seemed to have tired out Askren a bit, too, and the last round or so of the fight wasn’t super-clean as far as victories go.
Askren ultimately won a 5-round decision against a good opponent, but he didn’t get another title-defense and the bout hadn’t gone as he would’ve preferred.
Things went from bad to worse for Askren for the rest of 2016, as Sapo was matched up with inaugural ONE middleweight champion Igor Svirid in a hydrated-welterweight bout that had title-implications for the winner, but the extremely lackadaisical nature of the fight, with neither fighter wanting to initiate and spending almost the entire fight circling each other and waiting for the other guy to do something, along with a knee injury to Sapo-- who won by landing some hard kicks and getting some Guida-esque top-control going at the end of the fight-- led to him not getting the long-awaited rematch. ONE not being able to get a suitable welterweight opponent in the organization during the time led to Askren not having another welterweight matchup for the year, but another thing was lined up. Askren and middleweight champion Vitaly Bigdash had agreed to a fight and Askren was hoping to become ONE’s first two-divisional champion when he was offered a shot at the middleweight title in the main-event of ONE’s sophomore appearance in the country of Thailand in December, 2016. It was gonna be a very good fight. The King of Thailand died at the end of October, though, and, with the country’s military dictatorship doing wacky things, they initiated a one-month long period of mourning where all television broadcasts, sporting events and musical concerts were banned in the country. So the card in Thailand was canceled, since it wouldn’t have given them nearly enough time to promote it, and, though it was rumored to have been re-scheduled the next month in Jakarta, Bigdash ultimately declined and decided he didn’t want to fight Askren anymore, so the title-shot went to Marcin Prachnio and, after an injury to Prachnio, to Aung La N Sang. And Askren had, yet again, had a fight canceled and had only fought once in the year.
People don’t know this history, though, and think that ONE had been refusing to give Askren fights and that Askren was not only regretting his decision to sign with ONE (which he’s said he hasn’t been, it’s just that the situations have been frustrating, which’s an understandable feeling), but that he doesn’t want to fight more than once a year and he’s a hypocrite for having the bravado he has while only fighting once a year. They act like outside forces haven’t been preventing matchups like they have been. Askren’s talked it over heavily with ONE, though, and, after getting a good offer from them to re-sign for another 6 fights, he’s been assured he’s gonna get to fight much more frequently for the rest of his career (which‘s rumored to end this year, since I‘m assuming he has other things he wants to pursue), and he’s getting the first chance to do that in 2017 against former Malaysian Invasion champion and welterweight prospect Agilan Thani.
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