Written by Derek Moody, April 15, 2016, at 5:56 p.m. Tweet to: @DerekMoody619
One Championship Global Rivals
Tonight at 7 p.m., at the Mall of Asia Arena, Ben “Funky” Askren (14-0, 1 no contest) will defend his One Championship Welterweight Title against Nikolay Aleksakhin (17-3). Unknown to most fight fans, Aleksakhin is far from a novice. This fight could pose to be interesting if Aleksakhin can avoid majority of the takedowns that will be headed his way.
Anyone unfamiliar with a Ben Askren fight, there’s not much to it, he throws a few strikes shoots for the takedown, over and over until successful, then ends the fight with ground and pound if a limb isn’t available. Sounds pretty basic. It is, but for some reason his opponents have yet to alter that scenario, which is why he has no problem telling them he’s going to do exactly that before the fight.
Completely dominating the Bellator cage for three years, Askren also told his opponents his game plan before those fights to see how they’d hinder it as well, but it never happened. Askren never showed a tremendous amount of athleticism or technique but he did display hard work and determination. His will to succeed far outweighed the talent of his opponents.
Free agency has shown to pay off well for ex UFC fighters, bringing them more financial stability. More pay per fights plus regaining their previously lost endorsements. I doubt there’s a fighter out there who would say the Reebok payout holds a higher value than the money gained via endorsements. This is something Askren predicted years back stating the free agent market was going to rise and it certainly has, many UFC Stars are more than willing to seek other organizations to get what they feel is owed to them.
Ben Askren is guaranteed six figures a fight at One Championship not including his endorsements which would make majority of fighters livelihood absolutely comfortable. For a fighter in the UFC to get six figures that isn’t someone fighting for a title or ranked in the top five, they’d most likely have to get a post fight performance bonus.
By no means am I saying the UFC is cheap, I just think certain fighters have been underpaid for some time now (Rory MacDonald, Nate Diaz before UFC196, Meisha Tate, the list goes on). Meisha Tate, who just won the Women’s Bantamweight title only pulled in $92k, not including a post-fight bonus. She was well underpaid compared to the $500k Holly Holm received in a losing effort.
There comes a point in every fighter’s career where they have to think about retirement. What’s more beneficial? Knowing you fought the top talent for less money, potentially destroying your body along the way, or fighting no names to most of the world and receiving big paydays, not having taken in much damage at all?
Option One will definitely earn you a legacy Option Two will help build a life outside of the sport. I truly believe Askren wants Option One to have that legacy in MMA but he’s more structured for Option Two and it’s hard to blame him for currently going that route.
When Ben Askren’s contract with Bellator expired, a move to the UFC made sense, but the likelihood of it happening was doomed from day one and has never progressed. There’s certainly been a disconnect between Dana White and Ben Askren, always seeming to be on different pages the only agreement between the two sides is that don’t like each other.
Askren has no intentions of ever apologizing for his negative comments toward Dana White feeling he’s owed an apology but he did present a parody video at the MMA Awards jokingly apologizing to Dana. There feud has gone on for quite some time with neither side pulling punches. Dana believes Askren is just out for money, which may be true but he’s easily walking over the competition so he should get paid.
Ben Askren aspired to be the greatest welterweight that MMA has seen but understands he would need to fight on the grandest stage to prove so. Bellator and One FC helped increase his legacy but the competition isn’t exactly elite. Any of the top 15 welterweights in the UFC could easily become a champion at either promotion, Askren is the only roadblock from deterring that.
Will Askren ever fight for the UFC? The odds are similar to Fedor Emelianenko fighting for the UFC. There is an ounce of hope seeing that Cyborg just recently signed and I doubt anyone saw that actually happening. With six fights left on his contract, retirement is a more viable conclusion to this story.
Would fight fans care to see Askren fight for the UFC? Absolutely, there’s a huge amount of curiosity in wondering if his wrestling would dominate the division and gain him a title. I’m sure he’d like a rematch against Johny Hendricks from their wrestling days only this time in the octagon.
My final thoughts on this are that Ben Askren and Dana White will never see to eye to eye and the UFC would never pay him the type of money he’s seeking based on his entertainment level.
Ben Askren vs Nikolay Aleksakhin Aleksakhin Prediction
Askren by TKO.
