5 burning questions heading into UFC on ESPN+ 20

The UFC’s traveling carnival makes a stop on the other side of the planet Saturday, as UFC on ESPN+ 20 takes place in Singapore.

And while this card is more or less a placeholder with the huge UFC 244 event at Madison Square Garden just around the corner, there are nonetheless some fairly intriguing reasons for hardcore American fans to get up at odd hours and catch the UFC’s latest weekly offering.

Not the least of which is the main event. Ben Askren, coming off his memorable loss to Jorge Masvidal, returns to an arena he once ruled as ONE welterweight champion. There, he’ll square off with a 170-pounder who is also in an interesting career spot in veteran Demian Maia.

UFC on ESPN+ 20 takes place Saturday at Singapore Indoor Stadium. The card streams on ESPN+.

Without further ado, then, here are five burning questions.

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Can Ben Askren rebound from that flying knee?

We live in a day and age of contrarianism and endless hot takes, where there are endless attention-getting opportunities for those who try to make things more complicated than they are so they’ll sound smart.

But sometimes the simplest questions are still the right ones.

Such as: How will Askren (19-1 MMA, 1-1 UFC) respond to being on the wrong end of the fastest knockout in UFC history, which also happened to be one of the most violent?

We’re not questioning Askren’s toughness, and it’s commendable that he got out in front of his loss and owned it when so many others would have avoided ever talking about such a loss.

Still … we’re just one weekend removed from last weekend’s Chris Weidman loss to Dominick Reyes, which reminds us of the fact that Weidman was undefeated and unstoppable until the first time things went south against Luke Rockhold. And that was the start of a stretch of five losses in six fights.

So, how will the former ONE and Bellator champ respond? He’s familiar with the territory, as he fought three times at Singapore Indoor Stadium for ONE. And he’s got a good style matchup in the grappling-heavy Maia (27-9 MMA, 21-9 UFC). This fight should indicate whether Askren will go the way of Weidman (i.e. never the same after his first loss) or whether he’ll make the necessary adjustments and go on another tear.