Ben Askren Wants Masvidal Rematch; Chimaev’s Health Scare
Former UFC fighter Ben Askren is ready to rematch Jorge Masvidal at UFC 300.
Masvidal recently announced he was retiring, suggesting he could fight at UFC 300. Jake Paul suggested Masvidal would face Nate Diaz before deleting his tweet. With no confirmation over who Masvidal would face, Askren was ready to step up.
Askran retired from MMA in 2019 after losing to Demian Maia. He made a return to combat sports two years later, but Jake Paul knocked him out. Askren has no intention of having a boxing bout, but he was open to running things back in MMA.
Masvidal gave Askren the first defeat of his UFC career when he stopped him with a flying knee kick to secure the fastest knockout in UFC history at UFC 239. A fight at UFC 300 would give Askren the chance to redeem himself.
Askren Wants Masvidal
“Listen, I will say this right now. If Dana called me and said ‘Jorge Masvidal, UFC 300. International fight week.’ I don’t give a damn, I’m out of retirement. I will fight him, I don’t care. Yeah [only in MMA], I suck at boxing. You guys all saw that, I’m not going to fight in boxing. Are you dumb? I’m not doing boxing… Yeah. Yes, unfortunately [he hit with me a once in a lifetime knee], but he’ll never say yes to that. Until he loses some more money or something.” But it would be great. I would love to,” Askren said
Chimaev’s Health Issues
Another fighter who has mentioned his desire to fight at UFC 300 has been Khamzat Chimaev. He is coming off a win over Kamaru Usman at UFC 284. Before the fight, Dana White revealed the winner would face Sean Strickland for the middleweight title. That failed to happen as Dricus Du Plessis got the nod at UFC 297. A hand injury prevented Chimaev as he required surgery.
“I’m going to do a surgery, operation in one, two weeks,. After that, do the recovery, come back, smash somebody. UFC 300, tell Dana White [to] make it happen,” Chimaev said
But he had other issues to deal with. The following post shows Chimaev in hospital with an oxygen mask covered in hives. He could be heard saying the following.
“I was very sick, my hand was injured, so I couldn’t return right away, I wanted to tell all the fans, I want to see myself in battle more than all of you. I love this job, I will do and prove that I am the best, as always we do, and I will be back soon to training Insha’Allal. I’m coming back soon. For my belts,” Chimaev stated
Before we know if Askren and Chimaev make it on the UFC 300 card, there is still a long way to go. It could likely happen because they are iconic fighters in the UFC franchise. ‘Find all the latest boxing news and MMA breaking updates on boxingnews.com’
