When Ben Askren retired from the sport, he said it was because he couldn’t prove he was the best in the world. Then, a rare trade happened that sent ‘Funky’ to the UFC and he had a shot to prove he was the best in the world.

It started off rocky with a controversial win over Robbie Lawler and then was knocked out in five-seconds to Jorge Masvidal. Despite the loss, Ben Askren still believes he can prove he is the best in the world.

“What I said explicitly was I wanted to come back to see if I was the best in the world,” Askren said to MMA Fighting. “In that five seconds, we didn’t find that out. We found out Jorge has a fantastic knee and that I’m not invincible, but we didn’t find much else out.

“I think I can bounce back from that pretty quickly and hope that it happens.”


The hope is he can beat Demain Maia at UFC Singapore and then get back into the title conversation. But a fight Ben Askren hopes can happen again is the rematch against Jorge Masvidal.

“That would be really nice,” Askren said about a rematch. “Again, we’ll see where the division goes and where I’ll be, but I hope so.”