This Saturday Bellator welterweight champ Ben “Funky” Askren (7-0) faces mma veteran Nick “The Goat” Thompson (38-13-1) in a non-title bout as part of the live MTV2 broadcast of Bellator 40 in Newkirk, Oklahoma.
Askren, a former NCAA Division I champion and 2008 Olympic wrestler, will look to put his undefeated record against Thompson on April 9. “Funky” Askren’s last fight was in October of last year at Bellator 33, where he earned the Bellator 170 lb title after defeating former champ Lyman Good by unanimous decision. It was the wrestlers fourth straight win in Bellator.
During a recent interview on the Sherdog.com Beatdown Radio show (transcribed by FightOpinion.com), Askren called those who fight for bonuses instead of wins “losers” and that to be successful in the sport of MMA you need to win not put on a good show.
“I think people like that are losers because, in my mind, a fight’s about winning, not about putting on a show. We’re not singers, we’re not actors, we are Mixed Martial Artists or fighters or athletes, whichever way you wanna do it and that’s about winning. I mean, and when you consider it consider this point from an athlete’s perspective. So, a championship fight’s 25 minutes. That’s a long fricking time to fight. I’ve done a lot of hard things in my life and that’s one of the hardest. 25 minutes is a long time to fight. When you consider, if you go out there and say you go out like a sprint pace, like you go hard and Eddie Alvarez went to take his head off in the first two minutes, he might have gassed out in two minutes and lost the fight. That would have been so stupid and, so, I mean when you’re fighting for 25 minutes, every fan and their mother can talk shit about this and that and don’t finish fights. Well, why don’t they get in there and fight for 25 minutes? That’s a long time. And you got to win before you show. I mean, people that show on top of winning, say Anderson Silva, that dude now he’s a showman but he’s also won, what, 13 fights in a row? So, obviously, he can do it. And there’s people like Leonard Garcia who goes out and puts on a show but he’s like 3-5 in his last 8 fights. Like, c’mon dude….
“Right now, I feel like I’m really a threat to anyone. I mean I’ve trained with guys who are the best in the world. I’ve trained with Jake Shields, I’ve trained with Nick Diaz, I’ve trained with Jon Fitch. I understand how good the best people in the world at my weight class are. I really do. And just because I haven’t fought them in a real fight doesn’t mean that I don’t understand that. So, yeah, I’m trying to step up fast. I’m not trying to be in fighting until I’m 40. I want to see how good I can get, get there as fast as I can, do it, say OK, I did it, and then calm down, have a family, and live happily ever after, I guess.”
Askren also gave his thoughts on booking fights between friends, his opponent, and his ranking among the divisions other top wrestlers. Check out all of the comments at the link above.
