{"id":332640,"date":"2019-11-19T11:18:12","date_gmt":"2019-11-19T19:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=332640"},"modified":"2019-11-19T11:18:12","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T19:18:12","slug":"chael-sonnen-caught-off-guard-by-ben-askrens-retirement-announcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/chael-sonnen-caught-off-guard-by-ben-askrens-retirement-announcement\/","title":{"rendered":"Chael Sonnen caught off guard by Ben Askren&#8217;s retirement announcement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chael Sonnen admits that Ben Askren&#8217;s decision to hang up his gloves for good surprised him.<\/p>\n<p>Askren went into the UFC with a ton of hype. &#8220;Funky&#8221; had captured Bellator and ONE Championship gold. While Askren initially retired, he ended up signing with the UFC via a <a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/looking-back-on-the-ben-askren-demetrious-johnson-trade-one-year-later\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">trade with ONE for Demetrious Johnson<\/a>. Askren went 1-2 under the UFC banner. He submitted Robbie Lawler and was stopped by Jorge Masvidal and Demian Maia. During a recent appearance on ESPN&#8217;s <em>Ariel Helwani MMA Show<\/em>, Askren said <a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/ben-askren-announces-retirement-from-mma\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">he&#8217;s done for good now<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=a2J98piSPEs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">new video<\/a> posted on his YouTube channel, Sonnen discussed Askren&#8217;s retirement.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ben Askren&#039;s retirement surprised me...\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/a2J98piSPEs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Ben Askren&#8217;s retirement caught me off guard,&#8221; Sonnen said. &#8220;I mean I guess my first reaction is Ben, congratulations. Thank you for the great memories. It did surprise me though.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sonnen went on to say he wasn&#8217;t expecting Askren to reveal that he needs hip replacement surgery.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It surprised me that he retired for that reason only because he had been talking recently, even after the Maia fight, about, &#8216;look I&#8217;m gonna have to take some time to see if I even wanna do this anymore,'&#8221; Sonnen continued when speaking on Ben Askren&#8217;s MMA exit. &#8220;So I had no idea he had this hip bothering him. And when he announced his retirement, Ben is such a competitor and he wanted to be the world champion. And he did it over at [Bellator] and he did it at ONE FC. Then he wants the big unification match. Just grab all the belts. But a selfish guy will. This champ-champ thing is a very real phenomenon going around. I have nothing against it, grab as much hardware as you possibly can. So I thought if Ben was going to retire and when I read the headline that he had retired on Ariel&#8217;s show, I assumed it was just from a competitive standpoint of, &#8216;the road to the championship is not as clear and laid out for me.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Were you surprised by Ben Askren&#8217;s retirement announcement?<\/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 11\/19\/2019.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chael Sonnen admits that Ben Askren&#8217;s decision to hang up his gloves for good surprised him. Askren went into the UFC with a ton of hype. &#8220;Funky&#8221; had captured Bellator and ONE Championship gold. While Askren initially retired, he ended up signing with the UFC via a trade with ONE for Demetrious Johnson. Askren went [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54476,"featured_media":326401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10184,10104,39610],"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>Chael Sonnen caught off guard by Ben Askren&#039;s retirement announcement | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Bellator and ESPN analyst Chael Sonnen admits he was thrown off a bit by Ben Askren&#039;s retirement announcement. Askren has decided to walk away from MMA.\" \/>\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\/chael-sonnen-caught-off-guard-by-ben-askrens-retirement-announcement\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chael Sonnen caught off guard by Ben Askren&#039;s retirement announcement | BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bellator and ESPN analyst Chael Sonnen admits he was thrown off a bit by Ben Askren&#039;s retirement announcement. Askren has decided to walk away from MMA.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/chael-sonnen-caught-off-guard-by-ben-askrens-retirement-announcement\/\" \/>\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=\"2019-11-19T19:18:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/Ben-Askren-8.png\" \/>\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\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fernando Quiles\" \/>\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=\"Fernando Quiles\" \/>\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\/chael-sonnen-caught-off-guard-by-ben-askrens-retirement-announcement\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/chael-sonnen-caught-off-guard-by-ben-askrens-retirement-announcement\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Fernando Quiles\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#\/schema\/person\/570f9a688e392fcae2e6287763b6c7db\"},\"headline\":\"Chael Sonnen caught off guard by Ben Askren&#8217;s retirement announcement\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-11-19T19:18:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-11-19T19:18:12+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/chael-sonnen-caught-off-guard-by-ben-askrens-retirement-announcement\/\"},\"wordCount\":365,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Ben Askren\",\"Chael Sonnen\",\"UFC\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/chael-sonnen-caught-off-guard-by-ben-askrens-retirement-announcement\/#respond\"]}],\"copyrightYear\":\"2019\",\"copyrightHolder\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#organization\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/chael-sonnen-caught-off-guard-by-ben-askrens-retirement-announcement\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/chael-sonnen-caught-off-guard-by-ben-askrens-retirement-announcement\/\",\"name\":\"Chael Sonnen caught off guard by Ben Askren's retirement announcement | BJPenn.com\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-11-19T19:18:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-11-19T19:18:12+00:00\",\"description\":\"Bellator and ESPN analyst Chael Sonnen admits he was thrown off a bit by Ben Askren's retirement announcement. 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