{"id":368913,"date":"2020-11-24T06:36:53","date_gmt":"2020-11-24T14:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=368913"},"modified":"2020-11-24T06:36:53","modified_gmt":"2020-11-24T14:36:53","slug":"ben-askren-on-potential-mma-return-never-say-never","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/ben-askren-on-potential-mma-return-never-say-never\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Askren on potential MMA return: &#8220;Never say never&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Bellator and ONE Championship welterweight titleholder Ben Askren isn&#8217;t ruling out a return to mixed martial arts.<\/p>\n<p>Askren retired from competition last year, after a knockout loss to Jorge Masvidal and a submission loss to Demian Maia in the UFC. Once his retirement was confirmed, he underwent a complete hip replacement.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\/2020\/11\/24\/21575589\/ben-askren-never-say-never-on-return-to-mma-competition-after-successful-hip-surgery\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">MMA Fighting<\/a>&#8216;s <em>What The Heck<\/em> show, Askren revealed that his hip replacement had an immediate impact on his physical condition.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ben Askren: &#039;Never Say Never&#039; On Possible Return To MMA Competition - MMA Fighting\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/84oRJcDeYGY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p id=\"ea83k1\">\u201cIt\u2019s called a Birmingham hip,\u201d Askren explained. \u201cWhat they do is get it all cleaned up, they cap the top of it, clean up the inside, put something on the inside, but yeah. I\u2019m pain-free but there was a whole bunch of other things: I knew a bunch of pain on my one side, and my range of motion was tied to my hip issue, but I had all kinds of back problems.<\/p>\n<p id=\"nhr7CW\">\u201cThe day after the surgery, it was just gone,&#8221; Askren added. &#8220;It was wild. I wasn\u2019t anticipating that. I just thought I had a bad back because I wrestled my whole life, and the morning after my surgery I woke up and my back pain was gone. I thought maybe it was because I was on pain pills, but it just never came back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"G7Euq9\">\u201cIt\u2019s one of those things that when you\u2019re in it, you just feel like this is how it is. You don\u2019t think about it much and you just accept that it\u2019s the way it is. Now that I feel good, it\u2019s like that\u2019s the way that I am. It\u2019s tremendous.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With his hip feeling better, Askren, a former Olympian, intends to wrestle again. He&#8217;s also not ruling out a potential return to mixed martial arts, though it sounds like a bit of a long shot.<\/p>\n<p id=\"lZYRVE\">\u201cI would say, never say never,\u201d Askren stated. \u201cI think it\u2019s unlikely, but I\u2019m gonna wrestle next year. Not WWE wrestle, but real wrestle. I need a reason to train and stay in shape. I love eating ice cream and everything else. I haven\u2019t got on a scale in a year. I haven\u2019t gotten on a scale since I fought\u00a0Demian Maia\u00a0over a year ago.<\/p>\n<p id=\"WKCYE6\">\u201cIf I don\u2019t have a good reason to get on the scale, I\u2019m not getting on the scale and I know that ain\u2019t great for my health. I\u2019m not super obese, but I\u2019m definitely not in great shape right now and I can\u2019t really train. I can ride a bike right now, that\u2019s about all I can do with my hip but give me a few more months and I\u2019ll be able to start getting on the mat. I\u2019ll be able to start lightly doing some stuff.<\/p>\n<p id=\"iwQX8B\">\u201cI\u2019m definitely going to try and get some wrestling matches next year just so I can have a reason to stay in shape and I\u2019m at the wrestling academy five days a week anyways so it won\u2019t change that much.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Do you think we&#8217;ll ever see Ben Askren back in the cage?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Bellator and ONE Championship welterweight titleholder Ben Askren isn&#8217;t ruling out a return to mixed martial arts. Askren retired from competition last year, after a knockout loss to Jorge Masvidal and a submission loss to Demian Maia in the UFC. Once his retirement was confirmed, he underwent a complete hip replacement. Speaking on MMA [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54430,"featured_media":329959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10184,39610],"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 on potential MMA return: &quot;Never say never&quot; | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Former Bellator and ONE Championship welterweight titleholder Ben Askren isn&#039;t ruling out a return to mixed martial arts competition.\" \/>\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-on-potential-mma-return-never-say-never\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ben Askren on potential MMA return: &quot;Never say never&quot; 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