Midnight Mania! Paul KO ‘Equally Embarrassing’ To Masvidal Knee

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Welcome to Midnight Mania!

Ben Askren’s fall has been brutal. It may seem a lifetime ago, but there was a time when people wanted to see Askren face-off with Georges St. Pierre! Prior to his UFC career, Askren was undefeated at 18-0, a former champion in both One Championship and Bellator. After a successful (if painful) UFC debut, Askren suffered his infamous knockout to Jorge Masvidal, then Demian Maia strangled him into retirement.

Jake Paul’s right hand proved another brutal nail in that coffin. Given just how high Askren climbed in his martial arts journey, his slide is historically … rough.

Speaking with ESPN, Askren compared the two losses and their respective embarrassment.

“I would say they are equally embarrassing, the Masvidal fight obviously meant a lot more to me. This was a fight that had little significance in my life, the Masvidal fight had giant significance,” Askren said (via BJPenn). “The Masvidal fight, if I won that I was going to fight for the UFC title which was the only belt at that point that I hadn’t held. If I go on to win it, then I’m the first person to kind of, I don’t know if you want to say unify, but collect all three of those major belts and the first person to do it. The Masvidal match mattered a lot more to me. If we are talking about an embarrassing standpoint, they are equally embarrassing.”

All the same, Askren confirmed that he did not regret taking the fight. A big paycheck likely helps with even the most painful of defeats!

“No, not at all. I actually figured you were going to ask that question. The only reason, the one and the only reason I wouldn’t take the fight actually happened. The reason is the ability to have an embarrassing moment,” Askren said. “That’s a terrible reason not to do it, in my opinion. The main two reasons I took it was I was getting paid well and I thought it was a fun opportunity, and I still think it was both of those things. There were certain things in the 11 weeks leading up that stressed me out because somethings weren’t really organized, but overall I really enjoyed myself. I made a lot of money and unfortunately I didn’t get the result I wanted, but Monday afterward, I’m just going to go back to my regular everyday life.”

Insomnia

There has been so, so much fallout to the Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren debacle (HIGHLIGHTS) that I don’t even know where to begin. I’m just going to content dump it:

Will you be tuning into One Championship next week?

Robert Whittaker appreciation post … and also, Kelvin Gastelum chin appreciation post, because damn!

Marvin Vettori tries to talk trash.

Frank Mir is classier than Triller deserves.

Georges St. Pierre stays fit in the most unique ways.

Slips, rips, and KO clips

A huge percentage of slam knockouts are secretly headbutts, but hey, if it works, it works!

Bad knockdown aside, arm position remains important.

These two ladies go full-on slugfest mode, and I’ll be honest, I usually don’t care to watch WMMA brawling, but there was some power here!

Random Land

High-speed snow kayaking!

Midnight Music: I got a request for my favorite Led Zeppelin song in the comments last week. That’s an impossibly difficult question, but here’s my first instinct (but also maybe “Whole Lotta Love”):

Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.