JRE MMA Show #12 with Ben Askren

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   Yeah, my oldest one's…

   1. BABen Askren0:00

      Yeah, my oldest one's s- super-

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:02

      Here we go, five-

   3. BABen Askren0:03

      Okay.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:03

      ... four, three, two, one. (claps) Ben Askren, ladies and gentlemen. Dude, I've talked about you on this podcast-

   5. BABen Askren0:10

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:10

      ... at least a dozen times. You are the number one guy that I'm most disappointed never fought in the UFC.

   7. BABen Askren0:17

      Yeah. And I, I always get, uh, whenever you talk about me, I get like 15 texts, like, "Hey, Joe, Joe's talking about you now."

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      (laughs)

   9. BABen Askren0:22

      And, you know, they'll send me clips or whatever. So obviously appreciate that. Um, but yeah, I never, I never really got to fight those top guys, and it was for reasons beyond my control.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:32

       Yeah, and you're done now.

   11. BABen Askren0:34

       Yeah, I, so I said, I said... I, I don't wanna say I'm done period. I said I'm done excluding the fact that I get to fight and prove I'm number one. That would be the excluding factor.

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:43

       So if you could get in the UFC, you'd be willing to do it again?

   13. BABen Askren0:47

       I mean, I don't care where it is, right? I, I, I really-

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:49

       Right.

   15. BABen Askren0:49

       ... genuinely don't. And obviously that would be the, the thing that makes sense. But there is legislation, like the Ali Act and other things going through, so I don't know that maybe... You know, I'm still 33, so I'm not old, and you know, if you look at GSP, he took four years off-

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01

       Yeah.

   17. BABen Askren1:02

       ... from one fight to the next fight. So I'm not g- it's not like I'm gonna age overnight. Um...

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:05

       Well, your style too. You avoided so much-

   19. BABen Askren1:08

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:08

       ... damage.

   21. BABen Askren1:09

       I didn't get, I didn't get hit o- once this, in 20- 2017, so...

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:12

       Really? (laughs)

   23. BABen Askren1:12

       Yeah, I didn't get hit once.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:14

       (laughs)

   25. BABen Askren1:14

       Yeah, in three fights. So yeah, I, I-

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:16

       And that was ... Uh, you should tell people, you were fighting in ONE FC-

   27. BABen Askren1:18

       Mm-hmm.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:19

       ... which is a big Asian organization.

   29. BABen Askren1:20

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:20

       It's like the Asian version of the UFC.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Yeah. …

   1. BABen Askren15:00

      right along the same lines.

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:01

      Yeah.

   3. BABen Askren15:01

      And I, I think both are pretty evil and both are archaic and both need to be changed. And, and you know, if you could abolish the NCAA and the IOC, that'd be fantastic for athletes worldwide.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:11

      Yeah. Well, especially when you look at the football teams that are getting literally billions and billions of dollars-

   5. BABen Askren15:17

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:17

      ... every year.

   7. BABen Askren15:17

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:18

      And these athletes are ruining their lives. I mean-

   9. BABen Askren15:21

      Yes.

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:21

       ... you have football players that maybe play one, two seasons if they're lucky.

   11. BABen Askren15:25

       Mm-hmm.

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:25

       They get their back blown out, their legs get blown out, and then they never have an NFL career. And meanwhile, the university has made tons of money off of them.

   13. BABen Askren15:33

       Tons of money.

   14. JRJoe Rogan15:34

       And they make nothing.

   15. BABen Askren15:35

       Yeah. And, and you know, to make that e- even worse, 'cause I actually had this ... I had a whole podcast about this argument with someone, and to make that ... And we're on the same side of this, but to make that even worse, if you're an NCAA athlete, Joe, you can't even make money off your own image and likeness.

   16. JRJoe Rogan15:46

       Yeah.

   17. BABen Askren15:47

       It's, it's-

   18. JRJoe Rogan15:47

       You can't have a YouTube channel.

   19. BABen Askren15:48

       It's effing insane.

   20. JRJoe Rogan15:49

       Where you get ... Yeah, it's crazy.

   21. BABen Askren15:50

       So, not only will they not pay you anything, which I think we can debate and argue on that, but the fact that they can't make money off their own na- own image and likeness i- that's ... It should be criminal for that to happen.

   22. JRJoe Rogan16:02

       Jamie, you were telling me about this, right? Like a guy got in trouble for having a YouTube channel where he was mon-

   23. GSGuest (third person in studio)16:06

       Yeah, he was a pun- punter for like a, a college football team, or a kicker.

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:09

       Do you remember his name?

   25. GSGuest (third person in studio)16:10

       I don't remember his name at all. No.

   26. BABen Askren16:11

       Just mon-

   27. GSGuest (third person in studio)16:11

       No. No.

   28. JRJoe Rogan16:11

       Crazy.

   29. BABen Askren16:11

       And there was a, there was a wrestler from the University of ... I wanna say University of Minnesota. He made a rap album, and he had to either quit the wrestling team or donate all the money back, or something like that. It's like ra- uh, rap, rap and wrestling have ... They have nothing to do with each other. The fact that he can't go make money off freaking recording an album-

   30. JRJoe Rogan16:31

       Yeah.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   ... now, you were…

   1. BABen Askren30:00

      best talent, right? And so you have a very good idea of what's working and what is not working. Where in MMA, I think we struggle to see that because the sample size isn't large enough, um, to give us a really, really direct correlation.

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:12

      ... now, you were able to instigate your strategy in pretty much every single one of your MMA fights. The only fight where you really struggled was the Jay Hieron fight.

   3. BABen Askren30:21

      Jay Hieron fight, yeah. Absolutely.

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:22

      Yeah, that was, that was a close fight.

   5. BABen Askren30:23

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:24

      What was different in that fight?

   7. BABen Askren30:25

      Well, th- so that was the, my first fight at Duke's. Um, obviously Jay Hieron's pretty damn good too.

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:30

      Yeah.

   9. BABen Askren30:31

      I really don't wanna take that away from him. I think he was ranked number 16 in the world or something at that point in time. So that was my first fight at Duke's, and I think the biggest mistake I made... I mean, and obviously at that time I'm two, literally two years into my fighting career.

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:41

       Right.

   11. BABen Askren30:41

       So I stopped wrestling completely. Um, I didn't do one wrestling practice. I moved to Duke's August 1st. Well, I moved to Wisconsin August 1st, started training at Duke's August 1st. I fought, uh, three months later at the end of October. I literally did not do one wrestling practice.

   12. JRJoe Rogan30:56

       So what were you doing?

   13. BABen Askren30:57

       Uh, I was just, I was striking like six times a week. I was doing jujitsu a handful of times a week, and then I was doing conditioning. And so then after that fight, my wrestle- well, and then actually I went to, my brother was living in New York at the time who, my brother's also an NCAA champ. Um, went to visit him for Thanksgiving, and he whooped my ass. And I'm like, "I freaking suck at wrestling." Like-

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:14

       (laughs)

   15. BABen Askren31:14

       ... you know, like I went cold turkey. And so it's like, "Okay, I don't need to wrestle every day to be great at wrestling anymore, but I need, I need to wrestle once a week, twice a week, w- with high level competition." So at that point in time, and for pretty much the rest of my career, I would go to one of the local colleges once a week or twice a week just to keep my skills sharp. And so I think that was the biggest mistake I made in the Hieron fight is that I didn't wrestle at all prior to it. Um, but Jay Hieron was good. He was also a division one college wrestler, so he, he knew what he was doing also. Um, but I think that if I, if I had to pinpoint one thing, that, that would be it.

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:47

       Isn't it fascinating that a guy with as much wrestling experience as you have, all you have to do is take some time off and everything degrades?

   17. BABen Askren31:54

       Well, it's timing. It's all timing, right?

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:56

       Yeah.

   19. BABen Askren31:56

       So you, you take three months off, your timing's gonna go to shit. I mean, literally I-

   20. JRJoe Rogan31:59

       It's amazing.

   21. BABen Askren32:00

       ... tell you, I wasn't doing one practice, and so it's like ... But that was also what helped me get the striking thing down, is I was doing ... And this is what I think, uh, you actually made this point, uh, who the hell were you talking to? About wrestlers are willing to go into the environment. I was striking six to seven times a week. How many strikers go and wrestle six to seven times a week?

   22. JRJoe Rogan32:19

       It's a real problem.

   23. BABen Askren32:20

       None of them do. They don't-

   24. JRJoe Rogan32:21

       It's a real problem. They don't like it.

   25. BABen Askren32:21

       They literally, they refuse to.

   26. JRJoe Rogan32:23

       Well, there was Francis Ngannou-

   27. BABen Askren32:24

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan32:24

       ... in his training camp. When I talked to people outside, uh, afterwards, it's crazy, before everyone was saying, "Oh my God, he's in tremendous shape. Everything's amazing." And then afterwards it was like, "Ugh, he doesn't train on the ground."

   29. BABen Askren32:35

       (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan32:35

       And I went, "What?"
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Then maybe that was,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      hit a tree, right?

   2. BABen Askren45:01

      Then maybe that was, uh, that could have been a false flag.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:03

      No, it was a-

   4. BABen Askren45:04

      (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:05

      (laughs) Could have been, right?

   6. BABen Askren45:06

      Someone pushed him into the tree.

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:07

      Yeah.

   8. BABen Askren45:07

      (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan45:07

      They fucking took his ski out with a sniper rifle.

   10. BABen Askren45:10

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan45:10

       Right when he got too close to the woods.

   12. BABen Askren45:11

       Ah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan45:11

       Yeah, I think that there's a lot of very, very dangerous careers.

   14. BABen Askren45:15

       Sure.

   15. JRJoe Rogan45:15

       And I think if you feel compelled to do that-

   16. BABen Askren45:19

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan45:19

       ... no one, no one should be talking you into that.

   18. BABen Askren45:21

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan45:21

       But I don't think anybody should stop you. Like, I like the fact that boxing exists. You know? I would never want to tell, you know, Vasyl Lomachenko, "Don't fight."

   20. BABen Askren45:30

       Sure.

   21. JRJoe Rogan45:31

       I don't-

   22. BABen Askren45:31

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan45:31

       I would never want to tell him, "Don't fight." I want to see him fight.

   24. BABen Askren45:34

       But what if they, what if, uh, it gets proven without a shadow of a doubt that these things cause CTE, do you think the government is going to ban them?

   25. JRJoe Rogan45:42

       No, I don't think they can.

   26. BABen Askren45:43

       Really?

   27. JRJoe Rogan45:44

       How could they ban ... Are they gonna ban BMX?

   28. BABen Askren45:45

       The government likes banning everything.

   29. JRJoe Rogan45:48

       (laughs)

   30. BABen Askren45:48

       They really do.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:01:21

   (sighs) Yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      in your hard drive space.

   2. BABen Askren1:00:01

      (sighs) Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:02

      It's based on, uh, tribal societies. Like, you are y-... Our brains are sort of designed to keep track of 150 people.

   4. BABen Askren1:00:08

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:08

      That's how we evolved. And then over the last, you know, X amount of hundreds of years, now all of a sudden you have to keep track of many, many multiples of that.

   6. BABen Askren1:00:15

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:16

      Especially if you're someone like you or I-

   8. BABen Askren1:00:17

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:18

      ... that runs into so many people who you, you, you meet-

   10. BABen Askren1:00:21

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:00:21

       ... on a regular basis. You gotta keep those people all in your brain.

   12. BABen Askren1:00:24

       (smacks lips) But is it, is it... So, I guess I haven't read that, read into that too much. Is it that you have to just know their names and faces, or is it that you have to know, like, what's going on in their life?

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:00:33

       I think you're supposed to b- be able to track them, like have a, some sort of a... whether it's intimate or personal relationship with these people.

   14. BABen Askren1:00:41

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:00:41

       Know them.

   16. BABen Askren1:00:43

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:00:44

       You know?

   18. BABen Askren1:00:44

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:00:44

       So it's like, there's only so... Like, especially if you think about, uh, commentating on fights. I have to pay attention to these guys and what they're doing and their career.

   20. BABen Askren1:00:51

       Seriously.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:00:51

       And there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them.

   22. BABen Askren1:00:53

       What is it, 500 fighters now? (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:00:54

       Yeah, 500 fighters that's active. And then how many of them get r-... New guys come in, old guys go away.

   24. BABen Askren1:01:00

       (laughs)

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:01:00

       I still keep them all in my head.

   26. BABen Askren1:01:02

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:01:02

       "Hey, what's Sean Sherk up to these days?" (snaps fingers) You know?

   28. BABen Askren1:01:04

       I don't know.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:01:04

       It's like they're all still in the head.

   30. BABen Askren1:01:05

       Yeah.

Episode duration: 2:16:03