Ben Askren was called out by Jake Paul after the YouTube boxer’s victory over Nate Robinson. Now the former Olympic wrestler responds to this call-out, and he does not seem particularly concerned with the idea of fighting Jake.
Although his UFC run did not exactly how as planned, there can be no mistaking the skills that Askren has. However those skills are mostly centered around wrestling, with his striking never being a real focus of his training. This has led to some people believing that they could have a shot at beating Ben in a boxing match. The most recent one to call for this is YouTuber turned boxer Jake Paul, who got on the microphone after knocking out NBA dunk champion Nate Robinson to demand a fight with the retired MMA fighter, as well as many others.
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Ben Askren Down To Box Jake Paul
It would appear that Ben Askren is at least willing to return to action for a fight with Jake Paul. Speaking in a recent interview, the Funky One assessed the feud with the YouTuber, saying that he was not particularly impressed. Moreover, he likened the idea of a boxing match with Paul to beating up his friends in the backyard as a kid.
“I don’t know if there’s a feud, more than this guy just said my name a few times,” Askren explained. “Most people are like ‘Oh I don’t know why Ben Askren would stoop to that level.’ Listen, when I was in high school, one of the fun things we would is have a bunch of guys come over to the house, we’d put on boxing gloves, and we’d try to beat the s–t out of each other. Like we did for free, we just did that for fun. And now you’re telling me that you’re going to pay me a whole bunch of money to beat up a YouTube star. Like I don’t know, that just sounds like a fun Friday night to me.
“I don’t care (if it’s in boxing or MMA),” Askren continued. “It can be Muay Thai, kickboxing, boxing, lethwei, name a style. You name a style, I’ll win.”
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Grading Jake Paul’s Performance
When Jake Paul faced off with Nate Robinson, he was taking on a former NBA player who was making his boxing debut. It certainly looked that way too, as Jake knocked Nate out cold in the second round. Ben Askren saw this performance, and was not exactly blown away with what he witnessed.
“It’s hard to say when you’re going against someone who is that bad,” Askren said, when asked his thoughts on Paul’s fight. “I watched the highlights, and Nate Robinson…good god. Honestly it looked like he never boxed before. For such an elite athlete, this guy’s a very elite athlete and a great basketball player, he couldn’t box worth a damn. So I guess Jake Paul has at least enough power to put Nate Robinson to sleep. I don’t know if that tells us very much.”
Would you be interested in seeing Ben Askren box Jake Paul? How do you think that fight would go down?
