In my opinion, the most unfortunate career in the history of combat sports.
Yes there were fighters who struggled with their lifestyles, like Mark Kerr or Ricco. Or Karo. Or Jones or Conor. And I guess the list would go on.
And taking one step further, there have been fighters who ended up in jail, I guess the most famous one being Lee Murray, and there were some who even ended up in jail with a life sentence like a war machine. Or Joe Son, and so on. (What's Mayhem up to nowadays?) And even worse, there has been someone like Alhassan who got falsely accused of sexual crimes he didn't commit and had to waste his prime years.
And there were fighters who fell spectacularly in their late MMA career, like Chuck, BJ Penn, Gomi and so on. I guess this isn't mutually exclusive list as is the case with many things.
And obviously there are fighters like Android or Jon Jones who pissed hot and ruined the reputation they had. Funny enough, as much as I disliked Anderson, I think there's double standards at play. There are many roiders who comes back to the sport and given the second chances, but Anderson seems to be one of very few who so many fans turned their backs on. But never been a fan so.
And there's always Tim Sylvia, who I knew shouldn't have taken that Mercer fight, but he did and got ktfo and you know, his career went south from there.
Also, there were fighters who appeared to end up having mental issues, like Paul Filho and Mayhem Miller.
But personally, I think Askren may have had the most spectacular fall of all time.
He was an olympian, and he probably has a claim to be one of the best collegiate wrestlers to have translate into MMA. He probably is.
He was also undefeated for a long time, and he dominated legit opponents like Douglas Lima and so on.
So he was really an elite fighter with an elite background, with an undefeated record for a very long time.
Then, he won his debut against the former champ in Robbie. Yea Herb fucked up, but Askren did come through after the beatdown. Then he got hit by a flying knee by the journeyman Masvidal, which in my opinion is the hail mary of all hail marys in the history of MMA. Then, he would end up facing a real tough match up in Maia and got choked out.
Then he lost to a Youtuber in the first round.
I think most unfortunate, because I know for sure if things just worked out a little differently, Ben could have had a good career in the UFC. Ben has a style to beat Colby, I think Colby knows this too, just like Masvidal doesn't want any of Colby, because he probably knows what would happen as well.
Match ups are everything in this sport. I firmly believe that Askren had the style to wipe the floor with Khabib, as bad as his striking is, Khabib's isn't much better. But one guy is considered the GOAT, and other guy became a joke.
Colby is considered one of the best welterweights, but I know that Ben had the style to beat Colby. It's not that I don't rate Colby highly, I do, Iong before Usman dethroned Woodley, I called Colby and Usman would beat him by being a better fighter, when Woodley was being compared to GSP and some crazy stuff like that. Never been high on Woodley.
Super high on Colby, but I'm fairly sure Askren would've beaten him.
But one flying knee and Maia rnc later, he got koed by a Youtuber. And he's just a meme at this point.
I don't think anything can top that. There of course may have been more tragic careers, after all Askren bagged a million dollars for that, but I dare say the most unfortunate career of all time. As difficult as it may be to believe right now, Askren was an elite fighter with real elite back ground with an undefeated record for majority of his career and he did fight good fighters, you see.
But his MMA career after that, became nothing but a sad joke, when he had everything in him to contend for the title if a dice rolled a little bit in his favour.
But what happened was One hail mary of all hail maries by a journeyman, one Maia rnc, and one early stoppage against a Youtuber.
Then came Ben Askew.
