Ben Askren has a massive score to settle with Jorge Masvidal, and is even willing to revert his retirement to have a rematch with his former foe, and wants it to take place at the highly anticipated UFC 300 event.
Askren and Masvidal’s encounter at UFC 239 in July 2019 remains a historic moment for the promotion as it saw the fastest knockout in the history of the UFC, courtesy of Masvidal’s 5-second flying knee KO of Askren.
Since then, Askren has fought only twice- first a loss to Demian Maia at UFC Fight Night 162, after which he retired from MMA. It was followed by a pro boxing debut against Jake Paul in APril 2021, which also resulted in a loss for the former Bellator and ONE champion.
“Gamebred”, meanwhile, won only once after the Askren KO, against Nate Diaz at UFC 244 which made him the “BMF” champion. What followed was a four-fight losing skid before he called it quits.
Ben Askren’s unretirement plan comes following Jorge Masvidal’s announcement
On the new year’s eve, Masvidal hinted at a comeback as he posted “unretired” on X.
Unretired
— Jorge Masvidal (@GamebredFighter) January 2, 2024
Needless to say, the post didn’t go unnoticed by his arch nemesis as Askren is looking to get back into the fight game to avenge the setback from five years back.
Speaking to Daniel Cormier on YouTube, Askren insisted that if UFC prez Dana White books the rematch with Masvidal at UFC 300, he won’t think twice about becoming “unretired” and resume fighting.
“If Dana called me and said, ‘Ben, Jorge Masvidal, UFC 300, International [Fight Week],’ I don’t give a damn. I’m out of retirement. I’ll fight him. I don’t care,” said Askren.
“I want to fight this guy… but he’ll never say yes to that unless maybe he loses some more money or something,” he went on. “It would be great. I would love to. But you know what? It’s one of those things kinda like what you said about Michael [Chandler]. It’s like, I don’t want to be begging and groveling for it.”
“I mean, it’s unlikely to happen. If someone calls me and says it’s gonna happen, okay, I’m there. If they don’t, I’m just going to live my life,” added Askren. [H/T MiddleEasy]
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