Ben Askren

Ben Askren Admits He Underestimated Jake Paul

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Is Jake Paul a good boxer? It’s a debate that still ranges in sports circles. Despite being 6-1 in his career, Paul’s record comes with a lot of caveats. His first two fights came against a YouTube and a retired NBA player. Then there came a pair of fights against retired MMA star Tyron Woodley. However, Woodley was making his pro boxing debut in the first of those two fights. That has been a common theme with Paul’s opponents. Even those who have experience as fighters (Woodley, Ben Askren, and Anderson Silva), none of them were seasoned boxers.

This became even more evident when Paul took on boxer Tommy Fury. It marked the first defeat of Paul’s career and showed that he had a long way to go against fighters who had made their career in the ring. However, that hasn’t stopped Paul, who is set to fight former UFC star Nate Diaz in August. Furthermore, Paul has been adamant about getting a chance to fight Conor McGregor in the future. Now, former Paul victim Ben Askren has opened up about his fight with Paul.

Ben Askren Underestimated Paul

Askren opened up about his fight with Paul on Daniel Cormier’s YouTube channel. “I didn’t think Jake Paul would beat Tyron [Woodley] or Anderson Silva. So yeah, I kind of think so. It sounded like fun [to box him] and I hoped he sucked. We didn’t know at that point! At that point, he only boxed a comedian or something and a basketball player. So we didn’t know nothing. I thought, ‘Oh, hopefully, this dude’s just a bum. He’s gonna try and hit me hard for a round, he’s gonna get tired, then I’m gonna beat him up.’ We didn’t know he was any good.”

Furthermore, Askren advocated for Paul to get the chance to fight Conor McGregor. “I think McGregor times Jake Paul makes everyone a lot of money and I think if he beats up Nate Diaz it makes a lot of sense. I don’t know what Conor’s contract is or what his relationship is with UFC where he can go get it done but I think a lot of people buy that fight. There’s a lot of casual fans who just want to see a boxing match and you know what, Jake Paul’s actually not bad at boxing, and maybe I’m just trying to make myself feel better potentially, but he did beat Tyron, he did beat Anderson Silva.”

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The post Ben Askren Admits He Underestimated Jake Paul appeared first on HotNewHipHop.

Ben Askren Calls Jon Jones A Hypocrite

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The beef between Jon Jones and Francis Ngannou has really hit the fire in recent days. It all began when Jones called out Ngannou over his “baddest man on the planet” after Ngannou announced he had signed with the PFL. Ngannou responded, prompting Jones to tweet more barbs about the Cameroonian fighter.

The following day, Ngannou responded in more depth, saying that he would be more than open to fighting Jones. Furthermore, he claimed that his desire to fight Jones had been stymied by the UFC. “He came with strings attached. That’s what I would say. Jon Jones fight was coming with strings attached which was the thing that I couldn’t take it just like that,” Ngannou told TMZ.

Ben Askren Joins The Conversation

ATLANTA, GEORGIA – APRIL 17: Ben Askren enters the ring against Ben Askren for their cruiserweight bout during Triller Fight Club at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on April 17, 2021 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/Getty Images for Triller)

Ben Askren is a formidable fighter in his own right. 19-2 in his MMA career, he is a well-respected figure in the scene. He weighed in on the beef, going as far as to call out Jones. “Why I thought, ‘Wow, this is really weird, almost hypocritical,’ is Jon chose to be inactive for three years,” Askren said on Daniel Cormier’s YouTube channel. “He chose not to fight. I don’t care what Jon does, (but) he chose not to fight for three years. Francis is in the UFC pretty much the entirety of that three years, and we’ve seen other people go up weight classes.” He continued. “‘The Stylebender’ (Adesanya) did it and lost to Jan (Blachowicz) and went back to 185. So, we’ve seen other people do it.

“He had plenty of opportunity to fight Francis Ngannou, so now Francis Ngannou wants to say, ‘I’m the baddest man on the planet.’ I think he should be able to. Can Jon argue he is also? Sure. But Jon can’t say, ‘You can’t do it.’ Because Jon didn’t fight him for three years. “I would choose Jon. I think Jon likely is the best guy,” Askren said. “So my point of contention is, Jon was inactive while Francis was in the UFC and the champion. Jon could have said, ‘Let’s fight because I want to prove I am, without a shadow of a doubt, the baddest dude,’ and it didn’t happen. Francis can still leave, they never fought, and if he wants to say it for a little while, he can say it. I’m not mad at him.”

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Ben Askren Implies His Wife Is Ugly, Gets Roasted

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Ben Askren is pretty well done with his fighting career. Overall, he was a hated figure in the UFC. One can simply harken back to his fight against Jorge Masvidal to see what we mean. Moreover, he has a horrendous match against Jake Paul that saw him get knocked out in the first round. Consequently, there haven’t been many more opportunities for Askren in the fight game. He could have gone the WWE route, however, he has decided to stay home and be a family man with his wife and kids.

Speaking of his wife Amy, Ben Askren tried to pay homage to her last night on Instagram. The idea of an out-of-the-blue appreciation post is quite cute. After all, these things feel a lot more genuine when they aren’t prompted by a birthday or Mother’s Day. Although, Askren couldn’t help himself as he delivered an underwhelming caption that had most fans thinking he called his wife ugly. “I’ve seen some guys posting on social media lately about how they are winning bc their wife is attractive, while I don’t disagree I think finding a wife who is a great mother is 500% more important!!!” he wrote.

Ben Askren Swings And Misses

If you were to go into the comments of the post, you would see that everyone is asking the same question. Overall, people wanted to know if he was actually calling his wife unattractive, or at least implying that this was the case. Subsequently, in a second post, Ben Askren made it abundantly clear that he does, in fact, think his wife is good-looking. “She’s not insecure and I don’t need to state the obvious!” he wrote in the second post.

Overall, this is a sure-fire way of sleeping on the couch or in the proverbial doghouse. Either way, it made for a pretty hilarious moment on social media, and fans aren’t too upset about it. They got to laugh at a UFC fighter who has given us plenty of reasons to laugh at him. Hopefully, he has learned a valuable lesson about the internet and how to post.

A Second Attempt