Ben Askren’s legacy in the UFC will forever be tied to Jorge Masvidal. Askren was the recipient of the UFC’s fastest-ever knockout, when Masvidal threw a flying knee into his head only five seconds into their fight.
Masvidal entered the Octagon at UFC 272 with some fresh ink. On his left shoulder, Masvidal sported a tattoo of Askren’s silhouette from that flying knee knockout.
Ben Askren Mocks Masvidal’s “Terrible” Tattoo
When he appeared on The MMA Hour, Ben Askren was thoroughly amused. “It’s terrible. Oh God, it just looks like crap. That’s something like a teenager gets and you’re like, ‘Oh s***, I thought that was going to look a lot better, I thought this was going to be really badass but it looks kind of dopey.’ He’s rich. He can go to the best tattoo artist in the place.”
Askren pointed out that, far from marking Masvidal’s development as a fighter, the flying knee knockout was simply more of the same from “Street Jesus”. Masvidal strung together a few impressive wins over Askren, Darren Till, and Nate Diaz, but has three straight losses since against the welterweight elite.
“I think it’s semi-telling how important that singular moment was to his career. He knows it and tattooed it on his body because it was that important to him […] This is who Jorge was always. Never changed.
Unfortunately, he nailed me. Because the [Nate] Diaz [win] isn’t all that great. That was a great fight for him, but if you want to look back at his mixed martial arts career — and people can get mad at me, say what they want — but these are just facts.
He’s lost three in a row. Before that, he won three in a row. Before that he lost two in a row, before that he won three in a row. Before that he lost three of four, and then he won three, and then he lost one, and then he won three.
This is how his career went. He’s like 35-15. He’s had some good wins. He’s had some not-so-great losses.” Ben Askren, himself an accomplished wrestler, was unsurprised to see Masvidal struggle so much against Colby’s relentless pressure.
“Kind of what we expected. The thing that I get annoyed about is Jorge wants to fight him after the fight, and it’s like, you just had 25 minutes to do almost anything you want. Y
ou can’t eye gouge and bite — we’ve got a couple rules, but not a lot — so you can do whatever you want for 25 minutes, and now you’re going to act like you want more? Hey, you had 25 minutes, freaking do it to him.”
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