Askren: It’s obvious why UFC matched me with Lawler
“He should just come out and say, ‘I don’t like Ben Askren. I think he’s a jackass and I want to see him get beat up.'”
When the UFC signed Ben Askren in a trade for Demetrious Johnson, ‘Funky’ called out a number of top welterweights. But now he fights someone he never called out, Robbie Lawler, at UFC 233 on January 26, and he thinks he knows why.
“He’s probably the guy in the top five with the best opportunity to beat me,” said Askren to Brett Okamoto for ESPN. “He has pretty good wrestling and he’s obviously a heavy striker. If you want someone to beat me, that’s probably the best you’ll find.”
“Come on, man, it’s obvious. They don’t want me to win. Dana will deny it, but he should just come out and say, ‘I don’t like Ben Askren. I think he’s a jackass and I want to see him get beat up.’ That’d be cool, and I would take no offense to that whatsoever.”
“There are a bunch of guys I genuinely dislike that I could have fought. I actually kinda like Robbie Lawler. I would have preferred someone I don’t like, because it would have been so much more fun. I think it will be all right, though. It may take away my ability to talk trash, because it would be fake. But Robbie is a former UFC champion, he’s really tough. I don’t feel the UFC did it wrong at all. I feel it’s a good matchup on a good card, the first pay-per-view in the ESPN era, if you will. I was really happy to be put on this card.”
“I’m calling out Colby. After I beat up Robbie, Colby is getting called out in 10 seconds. Why? Because I don’t like him. He’s a bum, and I want to beat him up. Hopefully, Tyron will be done with him by then.
“And if I beat up two guys, one of whom was a former UFC champion in Robbie, and one of whom was an interim champion in Colby, I think I’ll give myself the standing to call out Khabib or Georges St-Pierre. Both of those guys I’d fight right now, but it’s not quite realistic yet. When I can call those guys out, I absolutely will.”