Chase Hooper is proud to be “adopted” by his doppelganger and metaphorical father, Ben Askren.
What started as a joke on Twitter, comparing the appearances of the eventual father-son duo would turn out to make a funny relationship between the two UFC fighters.
Rising star Sean O’Malley would also be brought into the mix of memes as he shared the iconic curly brown hair with Askren and Hooper. However, “Suga” was not a fan of that spice. Perhaps, it was because Askren never got in touch on Father’s Day.
Not even a happy Father’s Day from @Benaskren
— Sean O'Malley (@SugaSeanMMA) June 22, 2020
Two months later, Askren would give a harsh assessment of his ‘son’ O’Malley’s first-ever career loss. On the dawn of UFC 252, O’Malley was carried out on a stretcher out of the Octagon, having endured Marlon ‘Chito’ Vera’s barrage of leg kicks. Askren was embarrassed at the sight. “Funky” reminded the media that when he was on the receiving end of Jorge Masvidal’s record-breaking 5-second KO he did not need a stretcher to exit the cage.
O’Malley wasn’t fond of Askren’s post-fight comments:
“God, big Ben,” said O’Malley. “I thought you were smarter. I didn’t know you were stupid. It’s just stupid. If you ask the smartest person in the world, you smash their foot and you say, ‘Do you want to walk over there or do you want to be carted?’ They would take the cart.”
Ever since then, it is clear that O’Malley wants nothing to do with “The Askren Bunch.”
In an interview with MMA Island, Chase Hooper went into more detail why O’Malley (before the drama) never took on the curly-haired role in the first place.
“He’s like a young rebellious teen.” described Hooper. “[O’Malley] thinks he’s too cool for this type of thing.”
“I think people really have an idea for what they want people to see them as and he doesn’t want to have like a comedic side to things like that. He wants it to be like his own thing that he kind of comes up with and that his personality is about.”
“But, when I met him he was super cool. Pretty similar to myself, he’s a very quiet guy– He’s just really good at stand-up obviously. He’s good at the post-fight stuff, too.”
Do you think Sean O’Malley should embrace his role as part of The Askren Family as Chase Hooper has?