Ben Askren hasn’t gone into hiding since his devastating 5 seconds flying knee KO loss to Jorge Masvidal at UFC 239 on Saturday night, and instead seems to be taking the defeat well.
Askren had talked a lot of trash about a lot of people since joining the UFC, leading to a lot of people celebrating and making fun of him regarding the loss, and it seems that the wrestling ace doesn’t blame them.
“I feel like I probably deserve it,” Askren told ESPN’s Ariel Helwani yesterday. “I’ve been antagonizing people for almost a decade now, and it never came up on my end of the stick. Now, I’m not reading everything they’re antagonizing me with. I’m just scrolling through it. I don’t want to dwell on that. But fair enough. I always figured that when this point happened, I’d get lit up. I’m not paying attention to it, but I’m sure I’m getting lit up.”
Askren’s knockout seemed particularly brutal as he lay on the mat unconscious for several minutes after colliding with Masvidal’s onrushing knee face first, but he insists that, apart from having no memory of what happened just before the impact of for some time afterwards, he didn’t suffer at all afterwards.
“Saturday night was least traumatizing for me,” Askren said. “There’s a little part of my memory that’s blank there. I remember being in the cage with him. I don’t really remember the flying knee. Then, when I can recall, I remember everything. Like, ‘Oh sh-t, I lost to Jorge Masvidal. This freaking sucks.’ Everyone else is more worried about me than I’m worried about myself. I didn’t really have any pain of any sort. Not a headache. Nothing on my face hurts.
“So it was just like, ‘Oh, Jesus. I lost to Jorge Masvidal. How did I lose to him? How fast was it?’ I could tell it was pretty fast because I wasn’t sweaty or sore or anything. I knew it was fast. I didn’t know exactly how fast it was. Apparently, I set a record of some sort.”
Askren said he’s not figured out what’s going to happen next in his career, but did appear to indicate that he does intend to keep fighting.
Watch Askren’s full interview with Helwani below.
