Top welterweight fighter Ben Askren has had some well-publicized disagreements with UFC president Dana White, and he thinks that a run in the promotion just isn't in the cards.
Ben Askren is one of the few top talents in MMA that hasn't ended up in the UFC. The ONE welterweight champion has apparently had nothing more than a cursory meeting with UFC officials, and president Dana White has been very vocal in saying that Askren doesn't actually want to compete in the promotion. Askren denies that and in the meantime, he has become the barometer of what is deemed "UFC-caliber" to a lot of fans. He spoke to MMA Fighting about it, saying that he hears it from people on social media all the time:
"Every weekend. Every weekend it's on my Twitter. I don't know, I think it's kind of becomes a rallying cry for the people who realize Dana (White) is doing a lot of stupid things. I think I'm the thing that people can point that's the easiest one, that everyone can commonly agree on that Dana f**ked this one up. We all know he messes a lot of things up, but I'm the easiest one to point out. I think that's where it comes from, that a lot of people don't like the things that he does and I'm the easiest thing to point to, see how he blew something."
Unfortunately he doesn't have much hope anymore in regards to a UFC run:
"I mean, I think people realize that I'm one of the best welterweights, whether I'm number-one, or number-four, or number-five, or number-six. They know I'm up there, they just don't know where because I haven't been able to fight those people. So I think there's a lot of people who are really interested to see how good I really am, because they know I'm good, but they're not really sure how good. They want to see that and there's definitely interest in that, but because of some other people's shortsightedness, maybe it never really happens. It probably never will happen."
Askren (14-0) defends his ONE welterweight title against Luis Santos in Manila on April 24th.
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