THE real excitement of the UFC 235 card is in the testing of two ultra-hyped prospects who have yet to really prove themselves against the elite. The first is Ben Askren, a former Olympian in wrestling, and the second is Zabit Magomedsharipov.
Askren’s wrestling chops are well respected in the MMA community. How could they not be? He has gone undefeated in the sport despite having no striking to speak of. Askren’s nickname “Funky” refers to the style of “funk” wrestling that he is so adept in. Askren isn’t just famous for having a blast double he can initiate from twenty feet away and plough through the opponent. Instead, Askren gets a hold of whatever he can and works through attempt after attempt until his opponent hits the mat. And the effort doesn’t stop there, Askren keeps improving his position and striking until the final bell.
The problem is that Askren’s opposition has been largely underwhelming. He fought Andrei Koreshkov and Douglas Lima in the Bellator tournament but that was back in 2013, they have come a long way since. Askren went to ONE and got into the habit of having no real competition, but when he met the largely unremarkable Luis ‘Sapo’ Santos in April 2015, he had horrible trouble getting a hold of Sapo and looked to be in for the fight of his life before an eye poke forced a No Contest. It was the first time Askren had looked bad in the cage, and the rematch never went ahead because Sapo couldn’t even get in the region of the correct weight when the weigh-ins came.
Askren’s shots against Sapo were long and poorly set up.
In his UFC debut, Askren is tasked with taking down the great Robbie Lawler. Lawler’s best days are behind him, in fact his time as UFC champion came as part of a late-career resurgence, but if there is one thing that Lawler has shown himself capable of doing, it is beating up welterweight wrestlers. After he came down from middleweight Lawler seemed almost impossible to hold down, using butterfly hooks to sweep and scramble up, and hammering elbows to the side of his opponent’s head whenever they dropped onto his hips along the fence. In two terrific fights against Johnny Hendricks, Lawler held his own with one of the division’s best takedown artists and when Hendricks lingered on a single leg too long, Lawler started dropping wince-inducing elbows onto Hendricks’ kidneys. Hell, Lawler knocked Josh Koscheck out with a hook from the turtle—a position that is especially hard to hit effectively under the unified rules. If you leave Lawler an inch of space, he will find the best way to make you hurt.
For Askren, the plan will obviously be to wrestle. Once he gets a hold of Lawler, he has a good chance of smothering the knockout artist and keeping him off balance so that he cannot strike effectively. But Askren’s style is honest and straight forward—he has never shown anything clever to close the distance and hide his shots. His striking has, up until now, been a complete non-threat. Diving after long low singles as Askren was reduced to against Sapo is unlikely to cut it against a man who has seen as much in the cage as Robbie Lawler. Essentially this fight is as much about what is left of Lawler as it is about whether Ben Askren is legitimate—Johnny Hendricks had tremendous wrestling and the threat of a thunderous left hand, and he had to add combinations and low kicks to surprise Lawler to get the win. If much of that Lawler is left, this could be far from smooth sailing for Askren.
