Ben Askren appeared to be done with his combat sports career after first retiring from MMA after a submission loss to Demian Maia in 2019 followed by a TKO defeat to Jake Paul in the boxing ring back in April of this year, but it seems that he’d be willing to put his gloves back on for the chance to fight Nate Diaz.
The unlikely match-up emerged after Diaz took a pot-shot at Askren after reading the retired fighter’s recent comments about Jake Paul’s boxing ability.
“I think what played out is he’s kind of good at it,” Askren said on Lex Friedman’s podcast about Paul after having watched him fight Tyron Woodley. “And if you saw the way I saw it, he was still impressive in his showing and he has obviously put a lot of time into it. So, he’s not bad, I’ll say that much.”
Diaz was apparently less than impressed with Askren’s assessment though.
“Coming from a retired wrestler who can’t fight or box,” Diaz responded.
“Nate is right, I suck at boxing, he sucks at MMA,” Askren fired back. “If he wants me to prove it I can be in the USADA pool tomorrow. Would be happy to be the last fight on his contract.”
While that’s a fight that Askren may view as a chance to try and regain some lost pride, the reality is that there’s not really enough stock in his name anymore to make it worth Diaz’s time for what could be his last ever fight in the UFC.
One fight that Diaz does seem interested in however is the chance to go up against Jake Paul in the boxing ring once his UFC contract is completed, and the two also exchanged some words yesterday.
“You have 6 times as many losses as Ben Askren,” Paul informed Diaz.
“He sucks jake,” Diaz replied. “You’d get smoked n a real fight tho. You can’t really fight. Boxing matches with wrestlers only. Let that sink in.”
