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- Dec 17, 2010
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He will be back.
I have to say your dedication through the years to this dude has been pretty damn remarkable. You remind me of someone from an anime or some ish.
He will be back.
Outside of the UFC and Bellator, the most dangerous opponent for Askren is Palhares--and he has a decent chance of finishing him. I seriously doubt Ben would ever fight him, though.
Well he's retiring next week and he's not gonna come out of retirement to fight the 1-2-1-since-2016 Rousimar Palhares just to prove something to a minority of people on the Internet about a 2014-era fantasy matchup, so your doubts would be accurate.
We MAY see the two of them in a grappling match in the future, though-- Ben's said he's interested in occasionally doing some grappling matches just for fun (since the training won't be as severe and all-encompassing since he won't be trying to be a hyper-elite competitor in the sport of submission grappling), so maybe some promoter'll try to put the match together in the future and Asukuren will be in the mood.
It would've been about 1,000 times better than Aoki, though. He was easily handled in the grappling department by now FW Gilbert Melendez.
Lolwut? Did you watch that fight? He was not "easily handled" on the mat by Gilbert. This's literally what Gilbert did:
A - Stay about two feet away from Aoki's guard with a knee on the ground so Aoki couldn't upkick, then occasionally jump in with a light shot to the body and back out again.
B - Capitalize on Aoki's cage naivete [it was his first fight in a cage after 30 fights in a ring and his gym didn't have a cage to train in, and grappling significantly changes between the two] by wedging him against the fence every time he tried to get some rubber-guard going. Then lay on him until he released it, and back away to either repeat A or stand up and land a couple light jabs every minute.
He "handled" Aoki's grappling the same way Condit handled Nick Diaz. Not to mention that Aoki's improved his grappling in every area since then (especially in the cage, since he's had 8 fights in a cage since then, including 7 of his last 11.) It's really ridiculous to write off Aoki's grappling skills and to think he has no chance against Ben on the ground.
Gilbert was also a featherweight at the start of his career-- he went like 8-0 in the division before moving up to lightweight-- so saying he's a featherweight now like it's adding insult to injury isn't really accurate. He was about the same size against Aoki as he was against Henderson, and nobody would've called him a featherweight then just because he fought in the division.
The return is near.
MMA Math worksLooking at Tap, Hinds passed the hype onto Christophe Van Dijk, who passed the hype onto Emil Meek, who passed the hype onto Kamaru Usman.
Usman finished the guy who finished Askren, so the cycle is complete.