Yesterday (Mon. November 18, 2019) Ben Askren officially announced his retirement from mixed martial arts (MMA) competition.
Askren noted that he needs a major hip surgery that will force him to retire from athletic competition. Now, Askren’s good friend and former UFC middleweight and light heavyweight title challenger Chael Sonnen has taken to his podcast, “You’re Welcome,” to offer his thoughts on “Funky’s” retirement. Sonnen said he was “surprised” by the news. (H/T BJPenn.com)
“Ben Askren’s retirement caught me off guard,” Sonnen said. “I mean I guess my first reaction is Ben, congratulations. Thank you for the great memories. It did surprise me though.
“It surprised me that he retired for that reason only because he had been talking recently, even after the Maia fight, about, ‘look I’m gonna have to take some time to see if I even wanna do this anymore.’ So I had no idea he had this hip bothering him. And when he announced his retirement, Ben is such a competitor and he wanted to be the world champion. And he did it over at [Bellator] and he did it at ONE FC. Then he wants the big unification match.
“Just grab all the belts. But a selfish guy will. This champ-champ thing is a very real phenomenon going around. I have nothing against it, grab as much hardware as you possibly can. So I thought if Ben was going to retire and when I read the headline that he had retired on Ariel’s show, I assumed it was just from a competitive standpoint of, ‘the road to the championship is not as clear and laid out for me.’”
Askren entered the UFC via the first-ever trade in mixed martial arts (MMA) history. ONE Championship sent Askren to the UFC in exchange for Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson. During his time with the UFC, Askren picked up a controversial first-round submission win over Robbie Lawler, suffered the fastest knockout loss in UFC history against Jorge Masvidal, and ended with a submission loss to Demian Maia in Singapore.
What do you think about Sonnen’s comments on Askren’s retirement?
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