Ben Askren Predicting a Fast Finish Ahead of ONE: Dynasty of Heroes Title Defense
With the world’s top welterweights signed to several different organizations, it is difficult to conclusively answer the question of who is the best. What is not in doubt is that Ben Askren believes that he is better than any other fighter in the division.
It’s a point he can only prove by beating the opponents put in front of him and that’s exactly what Askren plans to do at ONE: Dynasty of Heroes on Friday. The 32-year-old is facing undefeated Malaysian Agilan Thani at the Singapore Indoor Stadium and isn’t shy about sharing his game plan.
“Listen, there could be like a fire in the audience, there could be aliens in the audience, dinosaurs in the audience… when you lock the cage door, I'm going to execute my game plan every single damn time. I'm going to walk across the cage, he's going to try to punch me, I'm going to grab him and put him on his back, and I'm going to start punching him and elbowing him repeatedly.”
Askren told us what he is going to do and he has a fairly good idea of how long it’s going to take him to do it.
“I think maybe the mid to late first (round), we are talking about between three to four minutes. I have said what I'm going to do for the last 16 fights of my career and I've done just that. Nobody else in MMA can say the same.”
The world’s top welterweights are competing in multiple promotions. Tyron Woodley and Demian Maia are with the UFC, Lorenz Larkin and Rory MacDonald are with Bellator, Jon Fitch and Jake Shields have been fighting for WSOF, while Askren is signed to ONE Championship.
He’s unlikely to ever fight any of his immediate rivals, but in the absence of a head-to-head meeting, Askren feels there are several factors that set him out from the pack.
“I never missed weight, I never turn down a fight, I never lost a fight, and I never failed a drug test. I do things the right way. To me, being a champion is not only wearing a belt around your waist, but how you live and how you train and how you affect others by the way you live.”
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Askren is clearly not expecting to lose to Thani, but he does give the Malaysian credit for calling him out and then following through with the challenge.
“I'm having a hard time finding opponents. I've obviously been idle for a while. (Vitaly) Bigdash called me out, but he doesn't want to fight. (Luis) Santos said he wanted to fight, but then when it's offered to him, he doesn't accept. So when a fighter who's my weight calls me out and actually accepts the fight that is something I can get excited about.”
What Askren doesn’t give Thani is any sort of a chance of winning the fight on Friday night. He’s expecting the 15th victory of his MMA career and is already making plans for the rest of 2017.
“I'm going to continue my reign of dominance in the ONE cage and this going to be the start of a very successful year for me. After I beat up Thani, I'm going to beat up all those chickens that refuse to sign the fight contract.”
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