“Gamebred” Jorge Masvidal is coming off of the best year in his fight career. In the year 2019, Jorge fought three times with all of the bouts ending with an exciting finish in his favor. Now, all of that hard work will culminate in a UFC welterweight title shot against Kamaru Usman at UFC 251. However, as much credit that Masvidal deserves for putting himself in this position, former welterweight Ben Askren believes that he’s a major part of Masvidal’s success.
Masvidal’s Legendary 2019
2019 was a year full of crazy knockouts. However, none were more deserving of knockout of the year than Jorge Masvidal knocking out Ben Askren. Even UFC President Dana White considers the knockout to be his favorite of all-time. While Askren was on the losing side of the iconic moment, he believes that the spotlight that he put on Masivdal rose his superstardom to another level.
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Ben Askren on Jorge Masvidal
Askren recently appeared on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show via ESPN. During the broadcast, he explained why he believes that he played a major part in the success that Masvidal is seeing today.
“I put the spotlight on him,” said Askren. “His Twitter followers, his Instagram followers [increased], I put the spotlight on him. I played the foil to him. Let him shine, unfortunately, I thought I was going to crush him. He says some of these things like the three-piece and a soda that maybe he isn’t intentionally funny but it authentic. People love that when he says F-ing super necessary, which I feel like he was a douche for punching me when I was already unconscious. I thought that was unnecessary, but he says it was super necessary.
Creating a Star
As the conversation progressed, Ben continued to play along with being on the wrong side of such an iconic knockout.
“You know what, it is pretty funny. I was the dude that got punched and that was Jorge being real and that was kind of funny. Even though I thought he was a douchebag for punching me when I was unconscious, it was kind of funny. So, yes, there is a certain authenticity to Jorge that people really, really enjoy.”
Askren is known for his trolling ways on the internet, especially on Twitter. Who knows, Ben could easily be trying to get a rise out of his following. Regardless if Askren truly assisted, exciting performances have propelled Masvidal to new heights.
