Bellators welterviktsmästare Ben Askren var i farten i veckan när han försvarade sin welterviktstitel på Bellator 97. Han vann förvisso matchen via en teknisk knockout, men det var i den fjärde ronden efter att han dominerat sin motståndare via den överlägsna brottningen. Så trots vinsten så fick han ännu en gång förklara sin fan-fientliga stil.
”I’m a wrestler, I’m the best wrestler in MMA,” berättade Askren på presskonferensen efter galan. ”Wrestling is, was and always has been the most dominant mixed martial art on the planet. That’s all there is to it. We all know it, some people want to fight it, some people want to doubt it, but wrestlers rule the MMA world.”
Askren har under sin obesegrade MMA-karriär inte lyckats fånga många fans på grund av sin stil. Och det är han mycket medveten om.
”You’re either the heel or the face right? For me it’s really easy to be the heel,” berättar Askren. ”Just like some stupid people think WWE is real, some people think that the persona I play is real as well and it’s easy enough to trick them. They love you or they hate you, but either way as long as they’re not neutral about you, they’ll turn your fight on. There’s a lot of people that tuned into Spike tonight to see me get knocked out.
”The likelihood of that happening was about one percent, but there was still that chance they could have seen that happen.”
