Recently, a few Bellator MMA stars in Dillon Danis and welterweight champion Rory MacDonald called out the now retired former One Championships Welterweight Champion in Ben Askren.
Bellator MMA President Scott Coker isn’t interested in getting Askren back to the promotion on a one fight deal, but is willing to work with One Championships for future collaborations.
“It seems like he (One CEO Chatri Sityodtong) has a really, really good program out there in Asia,” Coker said to MMA Fighting. “And we talked about that fight and I told him, to be honest to have a one-fight deal with Ben doesn’t really do us much. I wished him luck. I said if [Askren’s status] changes, Chatri, let us know and we said we’ll get together some time soon and maybe we can do some collaborations or we can work together in sharing fighters. If they need some help, we’re happy to help them. He said the same. So the relationship is good. When I think about the Ben Askren fight, if it was more than one fight, we would be interested.”
Askren spent three-plus years competing in Bellator MMA, relinquishing his welterweight title after deciding not to re-sign with the promotion after Bellator 97.
Coker says there are a lot of good challengers for welterweight champion Rory MacDonald and the promotion is lining them all up.
“We have a lot of other fighters to fight Rory that we could go to first,” Coker said. “But the one thing about this business, you never know. We’ll continue to talk to Chatri, because Ben is still under contract with ONE. We want to be respectful of that.”
One Championships and Bellator MMA are both holding shows this week, with One Championships 72 on Saturday Morning and Bellator 199 taking place in the evening.
