Askren: One little detail is keeping me from the UFC

Former Olympic wrestler and ONE Championship welterweight champion Ben Askren retired last year, but wants a shot at division G.O.A.T. Georges St-Pierre. ‘Funky’ and UFC president Dana White have suffered an antagonistic relationship on Twitter, which the fighter believes is slowing the chances of his dream reaching fruition.

Askren believes it started back in 2012 when he was Bellator’s welterweight champion, and responded to White’s referring to the establishment of random, comprehensive, out of competition testing in the UFC as impossible.

https://twitter.com/Benaskren/status/191878214191288320

White was not impressed and tweeted that:
•Askren was the most boring fighter in MMA history;
•Ambien takes Ben Askren when it can’t sleep; and,
•He’d rather watch flies f*** than watch Askren sleep.

Askren appeared recently on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour and argued that that bitter Twitter quarrel is part of what’s keeping him from the UFC.

It was so obvious that Dana stood behind all these lame-ass excuses of, ‘He’s not experienced enough, he’s not good enough, he’s too boring, blah, blah, blah, blah,'” said Askren, as transcribed by MMA Fighting. “They were all lies. Every single one of them was a lie, because he didn’t want to tell the real story, and that’s because he’s a very petty man who has — he’s got $350 million and a gigantic ego, and he still has no confidence himself, Askren said Monday on The MMA Hour.

I told them that they could do USADA testing and he said no, then they did it a year later. He can’t put that little detail behind him, so because of that little detail where I made him look bad, he has held a grudge ever since then and he has withheld the fight that fans want to see. Fans want to see how I would’ve done in the UFC, and he hasn’t been able to put that together because of a tiny little petty grudge over someone calling him a name. And it wasn’t even a bad name. I called him a liar. He was lying. So it was, in fact, true, and he’s been holding that against since 2012. I mean, for God’s sake man, you’ve got $350 million dollars. Don’t you have anything better to do than hold a little bitter grudge? It’s pathetic.

Askren detailed his long, strange trip through negotiations with the UFC. He was originally signed to Bellator with a contract that contained a matching clause, in which Bellator could retain exclusive fighter rights by matching whatever a competitor offered. Askren says the UFC said they would make an offer if he got that stipulation removed. Then Bellator head Bjorn Rebney declined to offer Askren a new contract, but the UFC still expressed disinterest.

Askren said he flew at his own expense to meet with then UFC co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta, with White on speakerphone. He said he was offered a UFC contract that stipulated he had to fight once for the WSoF. And then hours later that too was withdrawn.

He is a bitter man,” said Askren. He’s got a very fragile ego, very thin skin. And again, when you’ve got that much money and you’ve done — listen, he’s accomplished a lot of things, that’s factual, I will not take that away from him. But to have skin so thin, it’s pathetic. It really is.

Askren also believes the UFC didn’t want a former Bellator champion to enter the UFC and beat their champion.

So there was a handful of reasons,” he said. “Obviously my style is the not the most exciting. Usually, it would not be a roadblock, but when you have these other things, I think that — there’s a lot of contributors, right? There’s never just one factor in something. There’s multiple factors. But I will go back, I think the beginning was me chipping at Dana’s fragile ego with the comment of calling him a liar. And in fact, he was lying.

What I said on that tweet was, you can do USADA testing, you absolutely can. He said, no, you can’t. What he should’ve said was, ‘At this point in time, it’s cost prohibitive. We’re a business, we need to make money.’ Listen, that’s a great answer. That’s totally true. It’s expensive to do USADA testing.

Dana’s a dirtbag. I don’t talk to him. That’s a fact. Listen, I have said that from the beginning. I have presented my argument.

I laid out exactly how filthy he is, and it’s not just a little bit filthy, it’s all the way filthy. And I do not deal with people like that. I just don’t do it. So like I said, there’s a few pieces of these puzzles that have to come together, but you can bank on the fact that these pieces will come together in due time if you’re patient enough.

In White’s defense, he has a long record of being antagonistic with some fighters, but he also has a long record of working with them anyway. The harsh words between Askren and White are sweet nothings compared to for example White and heavyweight Josh Barnett.

“Dana White’s stature has changed quite a bit from a boxercise instructor,” said Barnett in 2011. “I’d be interested to see Dana White pass some drug tests. I’ll pass every test. I’ve already passed tests since then. I’ve passed tests before then. If he wants I can come pee in his mouth and he can tell me if he tastes any Dianabol or anything like that. He might swing that way you never know. He’s so manly and hetero, maybe he wants to get real Spartan about things.

Barnett fought five more times in the UFC after that, winning three performance bonus, which White hands out on a discretionary basis.

And White has a long record of bringing the best fighters in the world from other promotions like Eddie Alvarez from Bellator, Gilbert Melendez from Strikeforce, and, well, everybody from Pride.

Askren is just 33, and does not have a fighting style that has led to taking a lot of damage. He doubtless has a great deal of fight left. However, despite how eager the hardcore fanbase is for the fight, he’s not getting GSP for his league debut, because the UFC has not been driven by us for a long, long time. And it wouldn’t hurt to offer an olive branch.

“Whether he wants to think about it or not, here and now, no bulls*** Dana White is pretty f***ing metal and I am a metal dude,” said Barnett later in 2011. “We’ll at least have that sort of respect that can’t be overlooked.

Askren is one of the greatest fighters to never fight in the UFC. Dana White wants the best fighters in the world. That should be the basis for a sort of respect.