{"id":325533,"date":"2019-09-16T13:47:54","date_gmt":"2019-09-16T20:47:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=325533"},"modified":"2019-09-16T13:47:54","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T20:47:54","slug":"ben-askren-believes-idiots-usman-covington-made-the-same-error-in-negotiations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/ben-askren-believes-idiots-usman-covington-made-the-same-error-in-negotiations\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Askren believes &#8216;idiots&#8217; Usman, Covington made the same error in negotiations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">UFC 244 was originally expected to be headlined by a welterweight title fight between reigning champion Kamaru Usman and top contender Colby Covington. Unfortunately, negotiations for this fight ultimately hit a snag, and the fight was never made official. Welterweight contender Ben Askren believes that&#8217;s because both Usman and Covington made the same mistake: the both assumed they have more popularity \u2014 and therefor more bargaining power \u2014 than they actually do.<\/p>\n<p>Askren shared this opinion, which will surely generate some backlash from Usman and Covington, on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/video\/clip\/_\/id\/27630958\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ariel Helwani&#8217;s MMA Show<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These guys are idiots,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s not the first time I&#8217;ve told you they were idiots, and you guys should have listened to me before. I mean holy crap. These guys Covington and Kamaru can&#8217;t get it right \u2014 I called him Kamaru, his name is Marty, what am I talk about here? They can&#8217;t get it right! This is not from the UFC. This is my take, what I heard happened:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Colby Covington says &#8216;I want a whole bunch of money,'&#8221; Askren continued. &#8220;Colby, you&#8217;re not worth that much money. I&#8217;m all about fighters&#8217; rights here. I do think MMA fighters as a whole should probably be paid more. But at the same time, unless you&#8217;re part of that movement, you have to deal with yourself individually \u2014 one versus the UFC. So Colby shoots it way out of the ballpark, they say &#8216;yeah right dude, get lost. You&#8217;re not worth close to that much.&#8217; He is not nearly as popular as you think. So [the UFC says] &#8216;Colby, get lost. <a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/jorge-masvidal-to-kamaru-usman-sign-the-contract\/\">We&#8217;re bringing in Jorge [Masvidal to fight Usman]<\/a>.&#8217; Then Marty says &#8216;well if I&#8217;m fighting Jorge, I want more money!&#8217; And they said &#8216;what? Nobody gives a damn about watching you fight, Marty. Get out of here!&#8217; Then they made Jorge and Nate [Diaz] the main event, which people are excited for.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>What do you think of this take from Ben Askren? How do you think Covington and Usman will respond?<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><i>This article first appeared on\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>BJPENN.COM<\/i><\/span><\/a><i>\u00a0on 9\/16\/2019.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UFC 244 was originally expected to be headlined by a welterweight title fight between reigning champion Kamaru Usman and top contender Colby Covington. Unfortunately, negotiations for this fight ultimately hit a snag, and the fight was never made official. Welterweight contender Ben Askren believes that&#8217;s because both Usman and Covington made the same mistake: the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54459,"featured_media":281508,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10184,22188,10616,39610],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.7 (Yoast SEO v19.14) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ben Askren believes &#039;idiots&#039; Usman, Covington made the same error in negotiations | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ben Askren believes Colby Covington and Kamaru Usman both made the same error in the failed negotiations for their UFC 244 fight.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/ben-askren-believes-idiots-usman-covington-made-the-same-error-in-negotiations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ben Askren believes &#039;idiots&#039; Usman, Covington made the same error in negotiations | BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ben Askren believes Colby Covington and Kamaru Usman both made the same error in the failed negotiations for their UFC 244 fight.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/ben-askren-believes-idiots-usman-covington-made-the-same-error-in-negotiations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"| BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bjpenn\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-09-16T20:47:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/Kamaru-Usman-Colby-Covington.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"696\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"399\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Thomas Taylor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@bjpenndotcom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@bjpenndotcom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Thomas Taylor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/ben-askren-believes-idiots-usman-covington-made-the-same-error-in-negotiations\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/ben-askren-believes-idiots-usman-covington-made-the-same-error-in-negotiations\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Thomas Taylor\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#\/schema\/person\/496adaba08f39521150b5053c28fa1a0\"},\"headline\":\"Ben Askren believes &#8216;idiots&#8217; 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