Boxing News: Who Is Ben Askren? Just Askin’

To some boxing fans at first glance, it might have seemed like an athletic mismatch to suggest that Jake Paul, the YouTuber who has done a great job in promoting himself into a boxing draw, would take on a mixed martial arts star like Ben Askren in a boxing ring.

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From the standpoint of athletic accomplishment, it’s no contest. Askren competed in the Olympics as a wrestler, having been a two-time national champion at the University of Missouri. He won the Dan Hodge Trophy (the wrestling equivalent of the Heisman) twice, and at one point won 87 consecutive matches. He won a world championship in submission wrestling, and later went on to a career in mixed martial arts.

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There he won a world title in both the Bellator and One Championship promotions, then moved on to the UFC. His last bout was a loss to Demian Maia in October 2019.

By contrast, Jake Paul is a YouTube personality with two professional fights in the sport of boxing.

Yet when you look around, you will see that Paul is the favorite for the April 17 fight, and in one spot I notice him laying -265, while Askren is at +225.

So in other words, if you’re laying the number with Paul, you are banking on the fact that he has better than a 72.6% chance to win.

Why is it like that? Well, we’ll explain.

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Mixed martial arts competitors are not all built alike. Since there are many different disciplines involved, you can get involved with it through a number of different avenues. For Askren, that was his wrestling experience. That’s what he used – primarily – when he fought.

Even though striking (which is the closest thing to boxing) is an available tactic, that isn’t necessarily anything he excelled at. For a guy like Conor McGregor, going into a boxing ring isn’t as much of a leap because he was mostly a striker. And he handled himself better than expected against Floyd Mayweather.

You can’t really look at Askren in the same manner.

There was one website that posted this headline:

“Jake Paul will probably fake an injury and pull out when he sees this savage new sparring video from Ben Askren”

And I was hoping the writer of that piece was being tongue-in-cheek about it, because if he wasn’t, somebody needs to take away his crayons.

I have seen Askren’s sparring, as well as some of his striking in MMA bouts, and it doesn’t work. I’m relatively convinced he wasn’t just joking around for affect. And let’s not forget that defense is a big part of this too.

Askren was, for all intents and purposes, retired from competition, and had undergone a hip replacement in early September. And listening to him in interviews, I get the impression that the payday offered to him was the most important consideration.

“Am I opposed to making some easy money beating up a YouTuber?,” he asks, rhetorically. “Of course not.”

I’m just wondering if he really thinks it’s going to be that easy, or whether he would, in the end, be content to go the way of Nate Robinson, folding up if it’s too tough, taking his paycheck, and going home.

He claims to have an important edge, rooted in the idea that he is, by nature, a world-class competitor, and has been for much of his life, no matter what the discipline. He mentioned having “been in there with trained killers,” something that can’t be compared with Paul’s experience in fighting two opponents who hadn’t boxed before.

Sure, there is a point to be made with that; you can’t discount the value of being able to find a way to win against very capable foes for over two decades.

But it is absolutely necessary to point out the differences between boxing and just about everything else. I can’t tell you how many successful athletes from other sports have stepped into this sport and suffered epic failure. We wouldn’t have enough time or enough room to list them all.

I was involved in the business, in one way or another, for two decades, doing a lot of work with fighters. And I can assure you that if you are starting from “square one,” you would literally have to spend at least six months just learning how to throw a jab and develop even passable footwork.

Askren will have had 60-90 days at most to get started and learn how to be a boxer. That’s not enough time. And complicating things is the hip surgery. Askren has explained that his doctor has explained to him that he couldn’t really start training as an athlete for a year. But he’s trying to do this much sooner – six or seven months after a major procedure.

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I don’t see that working in his favor.

Listen, you may think it’s too gimmicky an undertaking for Jake Paul to take up boxing. But the one thing you can say about him is that he goes through the process of training on a daily basis. And he’s been doing this for quite a while. I can assure you that through the years, I have seen plenty of four-round fighters who have exhibited less in the way of skill.

We don’t yet know how long this is scheduled for. It could be that Paul can’t go that many rounds. But could the wrestler-MMA fighter last more than a couple, given his absence of experience and lack of time to get ready?

That might be ask-ren too much of him.

Sorry, but I couldn’t resist ending it like that.

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