UFC president Dana White and retired undefeated welterweight fighter Ben Askren had been at odds throughout the recent years.
Askren, a former Bellator champion, has long been considered one of the best welterweights on the planet, but he has never fought in the Octagon. Moreover, the longtime UFC color commentator Joe Rogan said he would mediate a sit-down with Dana White and Ben Askren come to terms with UFC deal.
Many believed that one of the reasons why Askren still not signed by UFC is his 2012 Twitter rift with Dana White. Mainly, Askren responded to White’s claim about randomly drug-testing his fighters was impossible, a thought that Askren dismissed, calling it, “a bold-faced lie.”
The USOC random tests Olympic athletes in all sports. Dana saying testing his fighters would be impossible is a bold faced lie.
— Funky (@Benaskren) April 16, 2012
@thefightweek @benaskren when ambien can't sleep it takes Ben Askren. The most boring fighter in MMA history. I would rather watch flys fuck
— danawhite (@danawhite) April 16, 2012
In 2015, UFC partnered with USADA to start implementing the drug test policies which Askren had referred on Twitter.
“It was so obvious that Dana stood behind all these lame-ass excuses of, ‘He’s not experienced enough, he’s not good enough, he’s too boring, blah, blah, blah, blah.’ They were all lies,” Askren said on a recent appearance on The MMA Hour (via MMA Fighting). “Every single one of them was a lie, because he didn’t want to tell the real story, and that’s because he’s a very petty man who has — he’s got $350 million and a gigantic ego, and he still has no confidence himself.”
“I told them that they could do USADA testing and he said no, then they did it a year later. He can’t put that little detail behind him, so because of that little detail where I made him look bad, he has held a grudge ever since then, and he has withheld the fight that fans want to see.”
Askren retired last November as the ONE Welterweight champion with an undefeated mark of 18-0-1 feels that Dana White still holding a grudge for being called a “liar.”:
“Fans want to see how I would’ve done in the UFC, and he hasn’t been able to put that together because of a tiny little petty grudge over someone calling him a name.
“And it wasn’t even a bad name. I called him a liar,” he continued. “He was lying. So it was, in fact, true, and he’s been holding that against since 2012. I mean, for God’s sake man, you’ve got $350 million dollars. Don’t you have anything better to do than hold a little bitter grudge? It’s pathetic.”
As of lately, Askren is actively campaigning for a fight with former middleweight and welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre and already have a date and location in mind.
