Ben Askren is having a case of deja vu reflecting on his knockout losses to Jake Paul and Jorge Masvidal.
Askren caught up with ESPN's Ariel Helwani following his first-round KO loss to Paul at the Triller Fight Club event on Saturday. Askren juxtaposed the Masvidal and Paul losses, and also revealed why he has no regrets about accepting the fight with Paul.
Admitting the loss to Jake Paul is "equally embarrassing" as his loss to Jorge Masvidal, @Benaskren tells @arielhelwani he has no regrets about taking the boxing match. pic.twitter.com/q4EpHz1V1T
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) April 20, 2021
“I would say they are equally embarrassing, the Masvidal fight obviously meant a lot more to me. This was a fight that had little significance in my life, the Masvidal fight had giant significance,” Askren told ESPN (h/t BJ Penn). “The Masvidal fight, if I won that I was going to fight for the UFC title which was the only belt at that point that I hadn’t held. If I go on to win it, then I’m the first person to kind of, I don’t know if you want to say unify, but collect all three of those major belts and the first person to do it. The Masvidal match mattered a lot more to me. If we are talking about an embarrassing standpoint, they are equally embarrassing.”
"That’s a terrible reason not to do it, in my opinion," he said of refusing the fight out of fear of embarrassment. "The main two reasons I took it was I was getting paid well and I thought it was a fun opportunity, and I still think it was both of those things. There were certain things in the 11 weeks leading up that stressed me out because some things weren’t really organized, but overall I really enjoyed myself. I made a lot of money and unfortunately I didn’t get the result I wanted, but Monday afterward, I’m just going to go back to my regular everyday life.”
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