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Thursday, March 28, 2024

ONE Championships bringing Askren to PH

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WORLD-CLASS wrestler Ben Askren will defend his welterweight title against Brazilian MMA veteran Luis Santos when the ONE Championship returns to Manila on April 24 at the Mall of Asia Arena.

Askren

Filipinos will finally get to witness a world-class wrestler in Askren, who is regarded as the one of the best MMA welterweights in the world. He was the undisputed champion in Bellator before bringing his act to ONE Championship, Asia’s biggest MMA promotion.

A former NCAA Division I All-American, Askren has put together 14 wins on the cage. In just two fights in ONE Championship, Askren was crowned welterweight king after dispatching Nobutatsu Suzuki via TKO.

Askren will defend his crown for the first time in the Manila leg, dubbed Valor of Champions, opposite an equally tough opponent in Santos, who made short work of Baktiyar Abbasov in his ONE debut in November last year.

Santos, with over 70 professional fights on his record is definitely a tough test for Askren. The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu blackbelt has 61 wins, half of which came via TKO or KO finishes.

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ONE Championship Victor Cui said he’s excited about the Askren-Santos championship tussle, saying that Akren definitely faces “ one of the toughest challenge of his career against Luis Santos.”

“Ben Askren is the absolute best in the world and we are excited to see him go up against the highly skilled Luis Santos. We are also ecstatic at the chance to be back in Manila to treat (Filipino) fans to world-class mixed martial arts action,” Cui said.

Askren recently had a one-on-one interview with the Standard and gamely played the numbers’ game.

18—Askren says he has no favorite number but if there is a number that is most significant to him, it should be July 18—his birthday.

1—The round in which Askren promised to stop Santos in their championship bout. “I’ll beat him right in the first round,” says Askren. There’s no more secret to his game as he vows to take Santos down and win by ground-and-pound.

3—The number of hours Askren spends in practice everyday

10—The number of fights Askren has signed up for a two-year contract with ONE Championship. He’s up for this third fight and has seven remaining. When he retires, Askren says he will go back to collegiate wrestling as a coach.

11—Askren’s most memorable fight was his 11th win at the expense of Karl Ammossou in his third defense of his Bellator crown in January, 2013. The win was made special by the fact that it was his first TKO win in a long while after a string of six decision victories inside the cage.

5—Aside from MMA, Askren is motivated by his family. He is married to Aimee for five years and has one-year old daughter named Alex

22—Despite the long travel from the US, which took 22 hours—Askren managed to make a short stop in Manila, before proceeding to Singapore to continue training at Evolve MMA Gym.

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