Ben Askren is a mixed martial arts phenom. Undefeated, Askren retired from fighting after a dominant run as the welterweight title holder of mixed martial arts promotion ONE Championship.
That being said, the super dominant fighter never made his way to the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Speaking in a recent interview, Askren revealed that he believes he never made it the world’s most famous mixed martial arts promotion because of his longtime feud with UFC President Dana White.
Before the UFC had begun using USADA to regulate their fighters, Ben Askren decided to critique the UFC President for claiming that it could not be done.
“The USOC random tests Olympic athletes in all sports. Dana saying testing his fighters would be impossible is a bold faced lie.”
The USOC random tests Olympic athletes in all sports. Dana saying testing his fighters would be impossible is a bold faced lie.
— Ben Askren (@Benaskren) April 16, 2012
Dana White was quick to retaliate.
“when ambien can’t sleep it takes Ben Askren. The most boring fighter in MMA history. I would rather watch flys f*ck”
@thefightweek @benaskren when ambien can't sleep it takes Ben Askren. The most boring fighter in MMA history. I would rather watch flys fuck
— Dana White (@danawhite) April 16, 2012
Speaking to MMA reporter Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, Ben Askren has since come forward to offer his thoughts as to why he never made it into the UFC.
“It was so obvious that Dana stood behind all these lame-ass excuses of, ‘He’s not experienced enough, he’s not good enough, he’s too boring, blah, blah, blah, blah.’ They were all lies. Every single one of them was a lie, because he didn’t want to tell the real story, and that’s because he’s a very petty man who has — he’s got $350 million and a gigantic ego, and he still has no confidence himself,”
“I told them that they could do USADA testing and he said no, then they did it a year later. He can’t put that little detail behind him, so because of that little detail where I made him look bad, he has held a grudge ever since then and he has withheld the fight that fans want to see. Fans want to see how I would’ve done in the UFC, and he hasn’t been able to put that together because of a tiny little petty grudge over someone calling him a name. And it wasn’t even a bad name. I called him a liar. He was lying. So it was, in fact, true, and he’s been holding that against since 2012. I mean, for God’s sake man, you’ve got $350 million dollars. Don’t you have anything better to do than hold a little bitter grudge? It’s pathetic.”
“He is a bitter man. He’s got a very fragile ego, very thin skin. And again, when you’ve got that much money and you’ve done — listen, he’s accomplished a lot of things, that’s factual, I will not take that away from him.
“But to have skin so thin, it’s pathetic. It really is.”
“So there was a handful of reasons.”
“Obviously my style is the not the most exciting. Usually it would not be a roadblock, but when you have these other things, I think that — there’s a lot of contributors, right? There’s never just one factor in something. There’s multiple factors. But I will go back, I think the beginning was me chipping at Dana’s fragile ego with the comment of calling him a liar. And in fact, he was lying.
“What I said on that tweet was, you can do USADA testing, you absolutely can. He said, no, you can’t. What he should’ve said was, ‘At this point in time, it’s cost prohibitive. We’re a business, we need to make money.’ Listen, that’s a great answer. That’s totally true. It’s expensive to do USADA testing.”
“Dana’s a dirtbag. I don’t talk to him. That’s a fact. Listen, I have said that from the beginning. I have presented my argument.
“I laid out exactly how filthy he is, and it’s not just a little bit filthy, it’s all the way filthy. And I do not deal with people like that. I just don’t do it. So like I said, there’s a few pieces of these puzzles that have to come together, but you can bank on the fact that these pieces will come together in due time if you’re patient enough.”
