MMA Fighting - Ben Askren Details Expectations for Jake Paul Fight, Reaction to Early Trash Talk Attempts

Episode Date: January 31, 2021

Ben Askren details how his fight against Jake Paul came together, how he's training for a boxing match after having hip replacement surgery, the trash talk that's already started and what he expects to happen when he finally clashes with the YouTube celebrity on April 17. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It has now been announced between Jake Paul and my guest today, Ben Askeran. Ben, welcome back. Thanks for doing this. And I guess congrats on getting a big payday to beat up Jake Paul. Yeah, thank you. You know, a lot of people have said congrats on that also. And I really feel, I don't know, it feels weird to get congrats on signing a fight deal. Seems like the congrats should wait till after the fight, but a lot of people don't, they don't feel that way.

So thank you. I appreciate it, even though it does feel kind of weird to accept that. On behalf of all Ohioans, let me apologize for Jake Paul. Let me start there. Is that where he's from in Ohio? He's from the Cleveland area, yeah. Yeah, him and his brother were wrestlers. They actually were wrestlers here in Ohio.

Yeah, you saw they went to one of my camps. Yeah, I did. I thought that was a great picture. I thought that was great. A few little kids. Yeah. So, okay, so you guys were going back and forth on social media, and despite the, despite what everyone believes, Twitter is not always real life, but how exactly did this

really come together? Like, was it as easy as trailer reaching out saying, hey, do you want this fight? Like, how did it actually come together? Yeah, he started bringing my name up on that fight week. I think that was where it started. And I kind of, you know, made some snide remarks back or something. to that effect. And yeah, then a couple weeks later, they reached out and we started talking and it went

from there. Yeah. Was it pretty easy to get the deal done to actually do it? Yeah, relatively. I mean, you know, we had a few date changes and I had to get everything approved by the UFC. But yeah, it was relatively easy. Yeah. So now I know we talked last year when you were having your hip surgery.

I know you had that hip surgery at the beginning of September. How are you feeling? obviously you've posted the videos you've been back in training but again i know when we talked a long time ago when you first said you were going to get that surgery that you know that was pretty much you know you wanted to get back into wrestling and teaching wrestling but you kind of imagine you know your athletic career was probably done at that point but i know there had been some changes but you went through the surgery in september obviously you must be feeling pretty good if you're accepting a boxing match in april yeah i'm feeling great um but you know the thing i did say when

I retired. I said, I will never be a full-time fighter, but if something interesting comes up, I'd be willing to accept that. And that's kind of, you know, this falls in that category, I think. I'm not going to, not going to be a full-time boxer, but I had got an interesting opportunity, and I'm going to take advantage of it. Is there less stress, and I don't mean this as an insult to boxing. I'm just saying, like, you know, in terms of the athleticism, is there less stress on your body for boxing than it would be for wrestling in terms of your hip? Oh, yeah, way less. Way, way, way.

I mean, wrestling, you put in all kinds of really, really strange positions. So, yeah, boxing's way easier. Or even then anything, right? Jiu-Jitsu, kickboxing, motai. Yes, there's very little stress comparatively. Yeah. Now, if they had announced this and said, you were going to wrestle, Jake Paul, I think a lot of people have said, oh, that'll be fun to watch Ben, you know,

twerk him up into a pretzel and have fun. But boxing. Now, Ben, I don't think you're going to be, I think he'll be the first guy. I admit, you weren't a boxer. Wait, why would? Wrestling would be interesting. I would pin him in 10 seconds. Well, you could hurt him for a little bit. Come on now, you can stretch out a wrestling match more than 10 seconds.

I know you could. Yeah, but then they would know I'm faking it. But during your, during your fight career, you were not known as a boxer. Now, I don't think, I don't think that's an insult. You were a phenomenal wrestler. Why would you suddenly abandon that to decide you're going to be a boxer? but when you saw this opportunity, like how confident were you in terms of like boxing a guy like Jake Paul?

Because again, I know you box, obviously you box in training, but you were not known as a boxer. Yeah, so I never, when I was doing MMA, I never, all my stand-up was based around how do I, how do I execute the intro to the striking and then get to my wrestling, right? And I was very, very successful at it. I actually calculated this other day. I think I got a takedown in 48 out of 51 rounds I ever fought in mixed martial arts.

So my strategy worked really, really, really well. That's like a 95% success rate or somewhere around there. Yeah. And so with boxing, obviously, it's different. But, you know, I told some of the other day, I'm really good at athletics. I wanted to be a really great wrestler. I won NCAA titles and made the Olympics. I wanted to be good mixed martial artists.

I won multiple belts in multiple organizations. And if I want to beat up an amateur boxer, it ain't going to take me more than three months of training to do so. So now what? I know this literally just came together days ago and I've seen your interview with Ariel where you talked about like you're still getting your camp together. But what will a boxing camp for Ben Ashburn look like?

Has that been determined? Yeah, so I'm going to use a lot of old group of people. I've had some interesting people reaching on Twitter. So I'm probably going to kind of look into seeing if I can't bring a few other people in to get their opinion and to hopefully get some knowledge. This first little bitch is all about getting back in shape. So I wasn't even allowed to work out for like three months after my surgery. And then when that time period hit, you know, I started doing some training just to kind of get back into it. But it wasn't like it wasn't purposeful training, right?

I wasn't I wasn't training hard. and so I started getting back in shape and then when this got a little more serious like last week I got I got a couple pretty good workouts in and then when it came together I think this came together on Sunday Sunday or Monday I think is when we kind of finalized it

this whole week I got back with my strength condition coach and really just kind of working on getting back in shape and that's kind of what the first little part's about and then I'm going to start doing just a whole bunch of boxing It's kind of going to be fun because I love the aspect of like training to try to be good at something. And when you think about it, boxing is so much easier than mixed martial arts. You just have to take your two hands and you got to punch someone in the face.

Whereas in mixed martial arts, you have to worry about the takedowns. You can get takedowns. You can stuff the takedown. You can clinch them. You can need them. You can kick them. You can punch them. You can elbow them.

Once you're on the ground, then there's other whole boatload of stuff. So like, if MMA is like almost an information overload, this one is just like drilling repetitions, getting in shape, feeling, time and distance, that type of stuff. So, you know, I'm looking forward to seeing how good I can get at it in the next 11 weeks. Yeah. What do you make of Jake Paul in terms of him as a person and him saying, and I'm saying, saying, saying he's being serious about boxing? Now, I say that because when you're serious about an athletic career, you know, you do it seriously, meaning you take five. fights against real boxers, you work your way up. And obviously, I'm not going to fault the guy for making money.

There's nothing wrong with that. But, I mean, when he says, quote, unquote, I'm taking it seriously. I don't know how seriously I take that. But what do you think of Jake Paul? I mean, honestly, like, when he first called me out, I mean, I had heard the name. I didn't really know anything about him whatsoever. And then I was like, why is this dude so famous? And I may be a generation, but I can't really figure it out for the life of me.

I guess kids like him and shit. Yeah, so who knows? Maybe that's true, but I would venture to guess once this thing actually starts getting serious. And I think that getting serious starts on April 17th. He's going to probably think twice about it. He's going to think, wow, there's a lot easier ways to make money for me in life. Like this, I kind of thought this was a good idea. I kind of thought it was cool.

and now maybe I'm thinking twice about this. What have you seen or did you watch his two other boxing matches? So I'd seen the Nate Robinson one. And when I signed the deal, I went back and watched the other one. The other one was really, really bad. I guess to his credit, he looks better against Nate Robinson. But then, you know, better against Nate Robinson. Nate Robinson looked like he literally didn't spar one time for that fight.

So better against Nate Robinson. I'm not really sure that means better. It just means maybe Nate Robinson made him look that good. Yeah. Now, when you're, and I use this as an example, a guy you train with a guy you work with, and the guy I actually have a lot of respect for is CM Punk. When he decided he was going to do MMA, he took it serious. He trained for over a year.

He worked with real people, and I talked to him numerous times, a really good guy, and you can tell you really did love the sport. Now, there's no shame in losing. That's part of sports. I'm not going to fault him for losing to Mickey Gall or Mike Jackson, but he did take it seriously. And when he stepped in, he tried, didn't work out. But again, he took it very seriously.

Now, I'm sure you saw today. I saw your reaction on Twitter already. You know, he's training with George Mazvedol. He's doing the social. And again, I get it. You know, there's going to be a buildup and a hype to this fight. But like, when you look at a jet, like, I keep saying coming back to like, do you think he's actually taking this seriously?

Because I have a hard time believing. Like, if he's doing it. And I'm not, listen, I don't think George Mazadol training with him is a bad idea necessarily. Yeah. You know, George is in a box. It's weird. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's pretty.

obvious why he's doing that. But what I would say to that is like, CM Punk, I was there. He did train seriously. But there's just something about starting a new career at age 37, especially when he, it wasn't like he was elite at any of these sports, right? He wasn't elite at boxing

or wrestling or kickboxing or jihitsu. Or really, you know, he was really elite at professional wrestling, but that wasn't, it's not really interactive. You versus me. And so you don't really know what that feels like you haven't been in those wars and it takes time you know i see it with the kids at my academy kids who've been there for six seven eight years they deal with things

differently like when you know another guy with a new kid if another guy like clubs him hard upside the head it's like oh shit you know and whereas a guy uh who's been there for a long time kind of just is like oh okay let's do this then you know like i see what we're doing here and uh you know and they know how to ramp up their intensity. And so with Siam Punk, who hadn't really been elated anything, any combat sports, it takes a while. He put a good effort in, but it was just too little too late. With Jake Paul, now he did start at, I don't know, was he like 25 or something,

so he started two years ago. Like, with the right environment and the right amount of time, could he become elite? Yes. Do I think that's what's going to happen? No, that's not what. I think it's going to happen. Yeah.

You said the other day that, you know, because you've engaged and you've had opponents trying to trash talk you before, and I love the quote you said about Aaron Rogers, kill him with indifference, which moves made me love. You knew Jake was going to try to play head games with you. He already put out the Mazinol video, and he did the thing on Instagram where he followed your wife, and you already responded, your wife responded, which is hilarious, by the way. Do you feel like in a way all this? I mean, again, I know, listen, because I don't know how much you watched it in the lead-up,

But like he did. You could tell like Nate Robinson was like fired up. Now, Nate was not trained and that was a whole other story. But you could tell Nate was fired up and kind of pissed off and all this kind of things. Do you feel like in a way you're kind of already diffusing Jake Paul? Because you're just, you're not letting him do what he wants to do. He's trying to get in your head. And it's obviously not working.

Yeah. I would, uh, I don't believe anyone's gotten in my head, um, ever. I don't. It's just been anyone getting in my head. Um, I'm sure he is going to make some good effort at it. But it's not going to work. Yeah, I mean, you knew with your wife thing, you knew he was going to try to go for the low blow right away, and you defuse that immediately, which I thought was hilarious, asking your wife to react to.

What was it, the thick comment, which I cracked up at? You pretty much took away his best weapon right there because you figured that's what he's going to try to do, right? I mean, like, so, like, for me, I don't even, like, I don't really see why anyone would get offended by that. Like, you know, Jake Paul, otherwise, who was. whoever it's like, okay, you're calm. I mean, I think my wife's attractive. I guess you're commenting on that. I don't know how that bugs me.

I mean, to me, that's like, hey, the wall's gray. Well, yeah, the wall's gray. And what else? You got something else to say about it? The wall's really gray. Okay. All right. Good.

Great. Thanks. Yeah. Well, I know that in terms of athletic accomplishments, obviously you've done far more than that, but in terms of like the mental side of it, do you feel like it's just going to be a really hard time for him to actually try to get under your skin? Yeah, he's not getting it on my skin.

Yeah, parfetched. Yeah, and I know you said that, you know, what, Trell, I'm not going to ask you to reveal the paycheck, but Triller is paying you well for this fight. You're making a pretty decent payday for this one? Right. Uh-huh. Did that play a factor in saying yes to this, or were you in no matter what?

Um, I mean, I wouldn't have done it for nothing, because my time is valuable and I have a lot of things going on. But at the same time, it's like in my younger years, say if I was in college and I was bored in this summer and I didn't really have anything going on, yeah, I would have done it for free. You know what I'm saying? Like if I wasn't busy, right now my life is really busy. I own five wrestling academies.

I'm doing a whole bunch of things. And so my time is valuable. But say I'm in college and we're on summer break and I got no classes and you say, hey, Ben, let's go throw some boxing gloves on and fight this dude over here and we're going to videotape it. I would have said, yeah, okay, let's go. That sounds like fun. I mean, I think I've done that before. Yeah. You predicted a seventh round CCO in this fight, meaning you're not going to finish them early.

you're going to drag it out a little bit. And we know that when these situations come up, and we've seen it before, these celebrity boxing things, when a guy actually gets beaten and we've seen it a couple of times. Well, like, I remember, as anyone ever brought up the,

was it the tough enough thing? W.W.E. did years ago when they tried to do, like, a tough man competition, and then the finalist. I kind of remember that. Yeah, and he fought Butterbean, and Butterbean knocked him out, like, really badly in, like, 30 seconds.

Like, it was real bad. And that's like, well, that's the end of that guy's career. Do you feel like after you beat Jake Paul, everything goes, well, you know, I got Jake Paul. You feel like that's going to be kind of the end of the Jake Paul hype, the end of the Jake Paul celebrity boxing thing? No. I mean, so maybe he says, maybe this one where he says, like, that's too hard. There's easier ways to make money. But, I mean, with someone who's got that larger of a following, I would anticipate there's always someone he can fight to make some money.

Maybe it's not as much, right? Maybe there's a dip or something. but I'm sure there's some other YouTuber that he can fight. I mean, I don't even know who all these YouTubers are. I have no idea, but I'm sure there's someone that he could pick who also has an equally large following and they could get other people motivated about watching it. Yeah, maybe Dylan Dennis.

Maybe you get Dylan to come out there and find him. Dylan Dennis. What a loser. Well, Ben, I appreciate you doing this. Obviously, it's going to be fun to see you back in there competing again, man. Obviously, I'm glad the hips doing well. I'm looking forward to this one on April 17th. And best luck in the training man. And thank you so much for doing this today.

I really appreciate it. Oh, you got it. All right. Talk to you soon. Yeah. Bye. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.