I can’t say this for sure, but a part of me is willing to bet that the UFC regrets passing on Ben Askren right about now.
Last week, reigning welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre announced he was vacating the title and stepping away from the sport for an indefinite period of time, turning the 170-pound ranks into a wide-open collection of title hopefuls and tough match-ups. Someone like Askren would fit in beautifully.
In truth, the former Bellator champion – who last week announced he had signed with One FC – would have been a great addition regardless of St-Pierre’s decision. There just aren’t that many unbeaten former Olympians with an ability to market themselves hanging around on the free agent market these days, and despite UFC President Dana White arguing otherwise, Askren has indeed beaten some solid competition along the way.
We all know there was far more involved here than White’s insistence that “Funky” wasn’t ready for the UFC.
Nothing would make Bjorn Rebney and Bellator puff out their chest more than having a former champion walk into the UFC and clean house, and White & Co. weren’t going to let that happen. Additionally, paying big money to someone coming over from their chief rivals hasn’t gone smoothly for the UFC to date, so suggesting Askren take his talents elsewhere for a while was a reasonable business strategy.
Unfortunately, it’s one that looks even worse than it did last week following Saturday’s UFC on FOX event in Sacramento, California.
For starters, the UFC can’t proclaim they’re the place where the best compete against the best, push Askren aside, and let Cody McKenzie saunter to the cage like a dude that was just dragged out of the alley and given some plain white shorts from Wal-Mart to scrawl his area code on before tossing him in the cage.
Yes, White spoke emphatically about what an embarrassing situation McKenzie showing up sans fight gear and competing with the tag still on his newly purchased Nike basketball shorts was for the company, but it goes beyond “We screwed up by not making sure the tags were off his shorts.”
McKenzie is one of innumerable former Ultimate Fighter contestants that has gotten to hang around the Octagon for a fight or three (or seven in his specific case) despite barring little resemblance to a fighter capable of climbing beyond the lower tier of the divisional ladder. While inexpensive competitors are always needed to round out the bottom of fight cards and occasionally get manhandled by prospects, the UFC’s bloated roster issues could be resolved by dispatching these types back to the regional ranks where their more suited to be competing.
And for anyone prepping a “Cody McKenzie is a lightweight, Ben Askren is a welterweight” objection, press pause: there are 84 welterweights on the roster, including several former TUF contestants that have made little or no impact in the division.
It’s impossible for anyone to take the “he hasn’t beaten anyone yet” argument seriously when Ildemar Alcantara and Lance Benoist are getting opportunities to cash UFC paychecks.
What submarines that stance even further was Saturday’s debut win for Zach Makovsky, the former Bellator bantamweight champion who stepped in on three-weeks notice to hand Scott Jorgensen a loss in his initial bout in the flyweight division.
While Makovsky competed on the regional circuit after getting unceremoniously (and prematurely, in my opinion) dumped by Bellator and stepping into the Octagon, his ability to show up and shut down Jorgensen 22 days after winning the Resurrection Fighting Alliance (RFA) flyweight title shreds all the “there’s no competition for top guys in Bellator” arguments.
Askren picked up on this point Saturday night himself, sending out the tremendous tongue-in-cheek tweet below following the win by “Fun Size.”
And here’s where the UFC’s decision to pass on the former University of Missouri standout and disc golf enthusiast crashes and burns: Askren is actually a better, more talented version of one of the company’s biggest starts, Chael P. Sonnen.
While Sonnen’s routine has ran its course after multiple instances where “The Bad Guy” talked a good game that he couldn’t come close to backing up, Askren has the skill set to follow through on whatever promises he makes. And he doesn’t have to tap into old professional wrestling promos to find material for his monologues either.
He’s like Josh Koscheck without being fixated on his striking – a ready-made “bad guy” that countless fans would quickly despise because he’ll walk into the Octagon, relentlessly pursue the takedown, and bring their favourite welterweight contender’s title hopes to a grinding halt in one way or another.
In a time when the UFC is in dire need of new stars that can move the needle and generate interest, they just told a guy that appears tailor-made to fill that role to kick rocks.
That was all well and good a couple years ago when Askren was out-wrestling Dan Hornbuckle, Lyman Good, and Nick Thompson, but he’s savagely mauled his last two opponents in dominant fashion and everyone that pays reasonably close attention to the sport agrees that he’s capable of competing with the best the UFC welterweight division has to offer.
The problem is that the UFC is a business and sports organization, and all too often they cite the sporting side as the reason behind clear business decisions.
If Dana White had just come out and said, “We’re not signing a guy fresh out of Bellator and giving them a chance to crow about how their champion just showed up and cleaned house,” there would be no room for backlash. In those terms, the decision makes complete sense.
But saying he’s unproven doesn’t play, especially when a sizable chunk of the UFC roster doesn’t have the experience, record, or pedigree of the fighter you’ve deemed not yet ready to compete in your cage.
