Former Bellator and ONE Championship welterweight champion Ben Askren has made quite the splash since signing with the UFC.
Brash and outspoken with a frustrating fighting style, he has relished in riling up his peers signed to the UFC roster.
However, when foe Jorge Masvidal launched a ferocious flying knee right out of the gate, Askren suffered the quickest knockout in UFC history.
Askren was already unconscious before his body hit the deck. In just five seconds, the former US Olympian had lost his unbeaten MMA record at UFC 239 on Saturday night.
Plenty of fighters seemingly took pleasure in the defeat suffered by “Funky,” including Masvidal himself and his teammate Colby Covington – a longtime verbal sparring partner of Askren’s.
Despite that, Askren spoke to ESPN’s Ariel Helwani fresh off his devastating loss to give a frank interview.
The standout wrestler insists he is fine and is not feeling any physical after effects of suffering a knockout of that magnitude, though his pride most definitely bruised.
“When everything clicked, it was like my head didn’t hurt, my face didn’t hurt,” Askren said. [H/T ESPN]
“Nothing hurt. I felt perfectly fine. There was no headache, no stomach ache, no nothing. Literally nothing. It was just, ‘Ugh, this sucks.’ I kept groaning the whole night, ‘Ugh, I lost to that guy?'”
The fight was short, but Askren recalls very little of the contest.
“I remember being in the cage with him,” Askren added. “I don’t really remember the flying knee. And then when I [could] recall, I remember everything. I was like, ‘Oh s**t, I lost to Jorge Masvidal. This freakin’ sucks.'”
Despite his animosity with Masvidal leading into the fight, he credits “Gamebred” for his victory and executing such a perfect flying knee to end a fight so quickly.
He even accepts he probably deserved the extra punches after already being rendered unconscious by the knee. Though, he hasn’t paid to any attention to what Masvidal has said following their fight.
“I’m seeing people saying Jorge got lucky,” Askren said. “That’s not lucky, man. Is it gonna happen 100 out of 100 times, definitely not. But landing a knee like that takes a lot of skill. I couldn’t do such a thing.”
“I antagonised the s— out of him,” Askren continued. “That was on purpose. I was trying to first get him to accept the fight, second then make him mad. Like those extra punches, it’s fine. It’s probably what should be expected in a scenario like that.”
