Former UFC, Bellator and One Championship fighter Ben Askren believes father time will catch up with Yoel Romero when he faces Israel Adesanya at UFC 248 tonight.
‘Funky’ took some time out of his busy schedule in retirement to speak exclusively to LowKickMMA and offer his opinion on the highly anticipated middleweight title fight between defending champion Adesnaya and feared Cuban wrestler Romero.
Whilst many see it as a 50/50 fight Askren leans heavily in the favour of the champion from New Zealand. In part because of the rising age of his opponent Romero who will enter the octagon at 42-years-old tonight. Although the man himself envisages another 10 years in MMA, Askren thinks his age may catch up with him sooner rather than later.
Speaking about the UFC 248 main event, Askren noted Romero’s impressive ability despite his age but thinks coming up against a young, hungry and talented fighter like Adesanya will be too much, he said.
“I think it’s Adesanya. I think he’s great you know. Obviously Yoel, people make a lot of Yoel being so good for how old he is, which it is in fact pretty amazing that he’s having so much success being so old. That that being said, age is not a number. Age is in fact undefeated against everybody. Everybody ages. Age gets everybody.
“Yoel is slowing down and he’s lost three of his last four fights,
which makes it pretty tremendous that he’s still getting a title shot considering
the fact that he’s three in four. And in the one he did win he in fact missed
weight and that was against Luke Rockhold, which would have been for the belt
and he would’ve won the belt, but he missed weight. So, he was not eligible as
he missed by almost three pounds
The rising age of Romero is not the only factor in his pick. Askren is
a big fan of Adesanya and sees the 30-year-old going on to have great success
in the UFC for years to come, he said.
“I think Adesanya is really on the upswing and easy and he can be
really, really tremendous over the course of the next three to five years. So
I’m a big fan of him and he can do a good job. So I got Israel Adesanya. “
Will Yoel Romero’s age catch up with him against Israel Adesanya at
UFC 248?