You’re ridiculously overrating Ben. Khabib, Maia, Usman, Wonderboy, Woodley, Hendricks, Shields, GSP, Fitch, Burns and Colby would’ve demolished Askren. They can all strike 10 times better and Askren has no chance taking them down or keeping them there. Lawler almost killed him. He was a champion in smaller orgs in an era with much less scattered talent. His best wins were a green Lima and a small grappler with bad wrestling in Aoki. He was getting tuned up by Sapo Santos for fuck’s sake.
As for your main point, I don’t see anything unethical. He went in there for a check, like Toney in MMA or Paulie in bare knuckle; or Nate Robinson. It was transparently a circus fight. All of them got embarrassed, but it’s them who have to live with that, not us. Their only responsibility is to themselves and their team, they’re not hurting anyone else. For the public and the promotion, as long as they didn’t actually throw the fight, they still delivered by embarrassing themselves, it’s still entertaining. The stoppage was legit. I’m 100% Ben didn’t want to get concussed by a YouTuber, but I also know he only showed up because the money was crazy; knowing he’s retired, old and injured, and accepted the risk.
Either way, I would bet Askren would also get embarrassed in boxing in his athletic prime if he could only train for 12 weeks against a guy who’s bigger and more experienced. He would maybe last a little longer, but that’s it. He is just that bad at striking, he is laughably terrible.
