JRE MMA Show #12 with Ben Askren

Ben Askren (0:00)

Yeah, my oldest one is super.

Joe Rogan (0:02)

Here we go, five, four, three, two, one.

Ben Askren, ladies and gentlemen. Dude, I've talked about you on this podcast at least a dozen times. You are the number one guy that I'm most disappointed never fought in the UFC.

Ben Askren (0:16)

Yeah, I always get, whenever you talk about me, I get like 15 texts like, hey, Joe's talking about you now, and you know, they'll send me clips or whatever. So obviously appreciate that. But yeah, I never really got to fight those top guys, and it was for reasons beyond my control.

Joe Rogan (0:31)

Yeah, and you're done now.

Ben Askren (0:34)

Yeah, so I said, I don't wanna say I'm done, period. I said I'm done, excluding the fact that I get to fight and prove I'm number one.

That would be the excluding factor.

Joe Rogan (0:43)

So if you could get in the UFC, you'd be willing to do it again.

Ben Askren (0:47)

I mean, I don't care where it is. I really genuinely don't. And obviously that would be the thing that makes sense, but there is legislation like the Ali Act and other things going through. So I don't know that maybe, you know, I'm still 33, so I'm not old and, you know, GSP took four years off from one fight to the next fight. So I'm not, it's like I'm an age overnight.

Joe Rogan (1:05)

Well, your style too, you avoided so much damage.

Ben Askren (1:09)

I didn't get hit once in 2017 Yeah, I didn't get hit once. Yeah, three fights.

So yeah, I-

Joe Rogan (1:16)

That was, it should tell people you were fighting in 1FC, which is a big Asian organization. It's like the Asian version of the UFC.

Ben Askren (1:23)

Yeah, so 1FC started in 2012, I think. Obviously, my contract with Bellator came up in 2013, and then there was that negotiation process, and obviously went south.

Joe Rogan (1:32)

And what happened there? You were the champ of Bellator, and then all of a sudden you left, and everybody was like, so you're still undefeated, right?

Ben Askren (1:38)

I'm undefeated, 18 and

Joe Rogan (1:39)

So what the fuck happened that Bellator let the champion go?

Ben Askren (1:43)

Well, that wasn't what happened. So-

Joe Rogan (1:44)

No.

Ben Askren (1:45)

And there's so much misinformation out there, and you know, I'm popular, but I'm not that popular, and so lots of times my story gets mistold because I get spoken over by other people, right? And they don't hear what I say. So here's what happened.

Obviously, so prior to me and Bellator, Hector and Eddie were the ones that left, right? They were, Hector was the-

Joe Rogan (2:05)

Hector Lombard and Eddie Alvarez.

Ben Askren (2:09)

Both the middleweight champ and then the lightweight champ, and they both got taken care of pretty well. But if you remembered Eddie's situation, I don't know if you remember this, he got an offer from the UFC, still under the matching period with Bellator. Bellator says, we matched it, right?

And in terms of what was in the contract, it was matched, right? But because Bellator has no pay-per-view venue, well, if UFC says, we'll pay you on pay-per-view, and Bellator says, well, we will, too. But that's not real life, right? That's fictitious.

Joe Rogan (2:38)

They've done two pay-per-view shows ever.

Ben Askren (2:40)

And they've never met any type of threshold. So, you know, they say it matches, but it doesn't, I don't know if you remember, but they went to court over it, and the UFC won, Eddie got the right to, I'm sorry, he didn't win. He somehow did like a one more fight in Bellator, and then went to the UFC. I don't know exactly what the finality of that case was.

But anyways, when that happened, his contract became public knowledge, right? And so a lot of UFC fighters were pissed because they gave him a whole bunch of money.

And so when I was 12 and 0, I had my last fight in Bellator against Andrei Khrushkov July 30th, maybe 31st of 2013, beat him up pretty good. And then I had a 12-month matching period. And so what was expressed to me by the UFC brass was that you need to get rid of your matching clause, and we will make you an offer. But we will not make you an offer until that happens.

Joe Rogan (3:31)

Get rid of your matching clause. How do you do that?

Ben Askren (3:34)

Well, here's how I went about doing it.

It's just 12 months, right? That's a freaking, I'm not gonna sit over 12 months. So I'd call Bjorn every day and say, hey, Bjorn, I'm not gonna resign.