It was the moment that made Jorge Masvidal’s career. Masvidal, up until that moment (at least according to Ben Askren) a “journeyman bum”, knocked Ben Askren out in five seconds with a flying knee. The shot remains a staple of UFC highlight reels to this day. Ben Askren feels that he made Masvidal’s career with the fight, and recalled the moment he woke up after the knockout, in a recent interview with The MMA Hour.
“Journeyman bum Masvidal became one of the biggest stars in the game. You’re welcome, Jorge. If he doesn’t [appreciate me for that], he’s an ungrateful son of a b****. How about that? He needs to send me a Christmas card every year for the next 20 years. But legit, if he doesn’t, he’s ungrateful. But he probably he doesn’t want to give me credit for anything, so suck it Jorge.”
Ben Askren Remembers Hilarious Moment Waking Up After Masvidal KO
Askren recalled waking up in the hospital, realizing that he must have lost the fight. “My first recollection there was — this is hilarious — I sit up and I see Luke Rockhold, and I’m like, ‘F***, that’s Luke Rockhold. That means I’m in the hospital.’
That was what I thought, because I knew he already got knocked out by Jan Blachowicz. And I sit up and I’m like, ‘What’s Luke Rockhold doing here? F***, I’m in the hospital.’ And then I looked and I saw my wife was over here, so I’m like, ‘What happened?’ And she’s like, ‘It wasn’t good.’ I’m not sweaty, I could feel like I’m not sweaty at all, I’m not sore, I didn’t hurt at all, so it was like, I must not have been in a hard fight or nothing. I kind of knew that.”
Askren was famously traded to the UFC by ONE FC in exchange for the UFC’s reigning flyweight champion, Demetrious Johnson. He felt that ONE emerged the victor in that deal. “With the trade, the other thing about the trade that was tremendous is Demetrious, he’s still over there kicking butt.
But it’s like, I was retired. Honestly, ONE Championship, yeah, they did do a good job, because I wasn’t going to do nothing else for them. I said I’m done, so they had an asset that was going to do nothing. I was happily retired doing nothing. And then they were able to get Demetrious Johnson, who’s now had — I don’t know, 10 fights, he’s had a lot of fights for them.
The UFC, I think it was just like, obviously if they really, really wanted to keep Demetrious, they would have.” Should Jorge Masvidal be sending Ben Askren Christmas cards? Let us know in the comments.
