I just wanna say: they scheduled the fight cuz' Askren's fine with it for the most part (he said himself he's never needed more than 5 seconds to say yes to a fight), and Thani called him out a few months ago after his last fight and Askren responded-- like he does to most anyone who calls him out-- and some local hype started to surround the match. More importantly, though, the fight'll draw a
bunch of Malaysian fans to the event, and Sapo's had some inconvenient, somewhat-confusing scheduling problems over the last few months which've delayed the rematch. They probably would've brought someone else in to fight Askren had he and Thani not started to hype a fight between them, but ONE saw a money-making opportunity and, well...
Thani's last three victories have been pretty good, too. Trestle Tan's better than his record would suggest and had just beaten a 5-0 fighter, and Brad Robinson and Jeff Huang had a respectable combined record of 9-3 going into their fights with Thani. Thani also has a 5-0 amateur record, and his amateur opponents had a combined record of 12-1 going into their matches with Agilan, so I don't think it's fair to just ignore that.
I would've preferred if they waited for Thani to get another win or two before they put him up against Askren, but whatever. The Askren-Thani fight'll already make 'em a lot of money and'll raise Thani's stock win or lose, and their profit margins probably wouldn't be raised much if Thani were 9-0 or 10-0 instead, so I can see why they made the fight.
ONE also tried to get Askren more fights over the last year, but unforeseen circumstances prevented that from happening.
Just end the contract and let him walk if he wants to.
Yeah,
that's how you make a fight organization more successful... letting everyone leave just cuz' they want to, becoming a de facto feeder league in the process. That's how the UFC got to be where they are; just
letting people leave the company.
