Only days away from Jake Paul’s next boxing outing, against former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva, one of his old opponents knows exactly what it’s like to endure Paul’s “dipsh*t” social media fanbase. Ben Askren, in a recent interview with MMAFighting, discussed how fear of embarrassment prevents fighters from seeking greatness, and why Paul’s “dipsh*t middle school” fans still don’t get to him.
“Some of these fighters, it’s kind of sad to say, but the only thing they think they’re good at, and the only thing they think brings them value in life, is fighting.
Askren on Paul’s “dipsh*t middle school” fans
And that’s it, right? And they need to find something else, whether it’s family, whether it’s a job, whether it’s hobbies, something else to take their time and find value in themselves.
Now is it annoying when all these dips*** middle-school kids go, ‘Jake Paul!?’ Sure, it’s annoying. But am I really going to let that affect what I actually want to do in life?
When you think about it on a deeper level, there’s a lot of people who live their life with that fear of, ‘What are other people going to think when I do this? What are other people going to say when I do this?’ And it’s like, dude, you’ve just got to live your life.
I probably didn’t realize this until I got older, but when you do not let things bother you, you can be so much more efficient in life. When I don’t have to worry about the fear of embarrassment, or what this person is going to say, or what this person is going to do, my life becomes just about, like, how do I achieve this objective?”
Askren fought Paul not long after his retirement from MMA, which saw him snap his decade-long undefeated streak with two UFC losses in a row. Askren was the first MMA retiree to face Paul in the boxing ring, and the YouTuber now boasts two wins over former welterweight champ Tyron Woodley. All in all, Askren isn’t concerned about how the fight affected his legacy.
“If I had told you [in 2021], ‘Shaun, hey, I’m going to box — me, Ben Askren — I’m going to box Anderson Silva and I’m going to win,’ you would’ve been like, ‘That’s preposterous. Stop.’ It sounds ridiculous!
So obviously this guy is way better than I thought, and I was unfortunately the guy who probably was negatively affected the most by it. But no, I think that legacy thing is, again, it’s worrying about what other people think. And you need to live your life in a manner that you want to live your life.”
Is Ben Askren right? Let us know in the comments.
