YouSaid · the spoken record

Ben Askren

lines on the record
204
first
2021-11-20
most recent
2021-11-20
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1
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podcast

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  1. “didn't prove it. I don't deserve it. I didn't prove it. Had I somehow gotten to convince Dana White, we go and convince him in 2013 to make me an offer. And I didn't even need a good offer. I just needed any offer. Had I gotten the offer then? Maybe the outcome's different, right? But given I would never expect anyone to think of me that way. I didn't prove it. I know what I was, and I'm good with that. And yeah, other people never got to see that.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “So it was weird because it was like this. I thought this was affecting this, but it was affecting all the way across my whole back. So, you know, if I get to get a new hip, honestly, if I don't know this is going to change the competitive outcome whatsoever, if I had known how good the hip replacement was going to be, I would have done it the second I retired from one championship in November of 2017. I would have had my hip surgery scheduled for December 1 just from a lifestyle standpoint. I could only sleep in one position. There's a lot of things I couldn't do. I was in a lot of pain So, I would have done that a lot earlier. But no, from an athletic point, I was ready, this chick goes wrong sometimes.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “It's funny because I knew I had a lot of pain here and I knew it was because of this. And it was like, okay, whenever I'm done, I'll just get it taken care of, whatever. But every time I train, I would have pain kind of like all up my back. And the day after the surgery, I woke up and there was no pain on the right side of my surgery's on the left side. There's no pain on the right side of my back. I'm like, that's fucking weird. Every morning I wake up, there's a lot of pain there, you know. I'm like, okay, I'm on pain pills. Maybe it'll come back tomorrow. And it's clearly never, never been back since my life.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Oh yeah, I don't know why guys like to lie about that. I mean, the peak for me was really evidently in my late 20s. And maybe they are all fueled by extra supplements. I don't know. But for me, that was evident. But you get this, so you get this crosshair where if you're smart, like, you know, like I mentioned, Joan Burrows was, you're still gaining wisdom. You're gaining strategy. You're gaining a lot of things, right? And so while your physicality may go down, your overall skill level still may be rising, especially in MMA, because people usually start later because they're gaining wisdom, strategy, all of the maybe more tools in their toolbox, right? They're getting all these things. So their actual competitive peak, despite their athletic peak going down, might still be a few years past that, right? Because these things are crossing. No, so I was great. Obviously, the hip was an issue.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Had not seen him come at that specific angle. Yeah. So that loss was really hard. What the burrows want. I told you, I knew I was going to lose. So it was like whatever. I'm taking this because I want you to put this board of wrestling out there in a big way. I want to help them raise a lot of money. We sold at Madison Square Garden Hoo Theater and we raised a whole bunch of money. So my goals were accomplished. Jake Paulfight, I took it because they paid me a whole bunch of money and I thought it was going to be fun. Did I have any illusion I was a great boxer? No illusions whatsoever. Would I have preferred to win? Absolutely. But, you know, like I told everyone, whether I win or lose on Saturday night, I'm going to be back coaching, wrestling on Monday because that's what I enjoy doing. And I was back coaching wrestling on Monday. And once a month, these middle school kids give me a little bit shit about it.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “And the Specifically, the way he did that knee was kind of different than the way anyone had thrown fine knees before. Most people go more just from a stand straight vertical, whereas he took a few like running steps and went more, you know, the trajectory of the angle was different. So, I think that's kind of probably why it caught. I think a lot of things in combat will probably everything, but I focus specifically on combat, have been subconsciously. Like our brain is reading what's coming at us. And a lot of times it's stuff we've seen before so we can judge how to move correctly.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “I mean, had I had a longer MMA career post that, there definitely would have been a lot of time spent getting better at the entry point to the takedown, right? Which I'd already spent time there. And I hate making excuses. But yeah, the hip hinging.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “I've been retired for a year. I got traded. I get to come back. I fight Robbie Law of the first fight. I win. And then essentially they're saying, okay, if you fight George, you're going to get the title shade against Marty. And it's like this is what I've been working for the entire. I've been trying to prove I was the best part of the world for the last 10 years and I've not been afforded this opportunity. So when I lost to George, that was hard because it was something that I had waited for for a really, really long time. It was something that I, you know, I thought I could compete for and I never got the opportunity to do. So that one was hard at the same time from just a competitive logistic thing. It's like, he got me with one move. It wasn't like he beat my ass for 15 minutes and I got beat a bunch of different ways. So that was like fuck. Like if I get it again, I could have done it, but I'm not, they're not going to let me have it again. It's not like wrestling where you could go the next year or the next week or whatever, you know, you lose a big 10s, you go to Nationals two weeks later.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Yeah, I didn't have a competitive fight. And so I retired 18 0. Never get, and for someone who loves a challenge, never get into really challenge myself was incredibly frustrating. And I left the door open. I said, if I ever get the chance to prove I'm the Destroyed, I'd love to come back. So somehow a year later, I get traded. Trades have never happened. This is the one and only trade ever.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “So I literally go to Vegas. It's a long story. You can read about it other places. So I got released from a belt. It's not like this is a negotiation. I got released from my belt or contract. I said, I'm out of here. I'm going to go to the UFC. I go to Vegas and then I was told, hey, there's no offer for you. Tough shit. You know? So then I ended up signing with one championship. I spent, what, three and a half years there, I won the belt in my second fight and retained the title the entire time. And then I just”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “So, yes, what happened the year before that was I called him a liar. But listen, I'm right on this one because he said you can't test for drugs because I'm all natural, which you can tell by my physique. And I was always put off by the fact that so many people cheated. And I was very vocal about that. And so he had made some statement like, oh, there's no way you could test. I said, bullshit. Very specifically, I said, USA does it for all other sports worldwide. You can do it. And then it's funny because I hire you sad a couple years later. So I think he took some offense to that. But that was like a year and almost a year and a half, I think, somewhere.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “So that one hurt because, and some people don't know Madame McCarrell, let's go through it fast. I did three fights in like smaller leagues. I got signed by Bellator. I was undefeated for three and a half years. I was 9-0. When I got done with that in 2012, 2013, at that point in my head, I was just going to transition to the UFC because that's where you go. I was ranked like sixth in the world. hadn't really had a competitive match at the end of the Bellator thing. Dana White, for a reason still unknown to me. We still haven't had this conversation. I wish I could ask and I should ask him sometime, chose to refuse me any entry into UFC. He just said, I went to his office and he literally said, we're not interested. We're not going to make you an offer.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “I was thoroughly enjoying it. I didn't feel the pressure. So, the Mosmen I'll fight is. He got one fucking move on me. It's not how he beat me. And if we do that again, I think I win at that point in my life for sure. I think I win way, way, way more times than I lose. He knew that too. That's why he didn't win. He didn't want to sound the bottle agreement. That's why I had to taunt him and why he got so mad because I had to continue to taunt him in order to get him to sign, right?”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Okay, so specifically with these two instances that you bring up, with the Mazvidal, it feels definitely, so okay. Let's go deep. Let's go deep. So the Mos”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “MRA Career Never planned it to go that way, but yeah, I didn't lose for nine years. And that's pretty rare. I didn't plan for that to happen. That was just what happened. Okay.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “I was trying to wrestle the best guys. Maybe I win, maybe I lose. When you do a competition, there's no guarantee of a winner or loss. You're just doing competition, right? So I wanted to challenge myself against the best guys of which I thought maybe I could come out on top, right? So like eighth grade year, I won way, you know, I probably only lost a handful of times in the state of Wisconsin. Well, the state of Wisconsin was probably really, really minimal the amount of times I lost, you know? But it was just about getting the challenge. And it's like some kids and not kids in my club because I'll push them very hard on this are scared of challenging themselves. They like being the big fish in the small pond. They're not willing to go say, I want to go get that guy and I want to get that guy and I want to get that guy. And so that's like, so I think that's part of it for me is like, I always just love the challenge. I enjoy competing thoroughly, right? And I understood from a young age because it wasn't very good. Losing is a part of it. You're not always going to win. And that was kind of it. It's like, hey, sometimes, you know, and for my.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Competition, yeah, yeah, in competition. Hey, I heard there's this tournament. Here's the magazine says this tournament. Hey, Dad, will you take me over there tomorrow”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Pretty good. So I'm writing this book on Sports Psych, but I got someone writing it for me kind of thing because I've had this philosophy for years that there has to be this balance between two things, right? So on the one hand, in this category, on the one hand, you have hating to lose. A great champion has to hate to lose, like you said, right? But on this other hand, you have to have someone who seeks out challenges, right? Because if you don't have that, you're never going to reach your full potential either. And so you have to balance these two balls at the same time, right? And so for me, I always, and this is maybe because I wasn't good, but I was always like, let me go find the best people to wrestle all the time. Let me go find. I would like literally like seven days grade when I was starting to get better. It was like, and this is an internet, no one was using the internet. It was like a wrestling magazine. And like, hey, dad, there's a tournament here. I think that are that kids going to be there. Can you take me two hours across the state today?”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Well, so I wasn't very good in the beginning. I think that's where it all starts from. So I didn't start getting good until the age of like 13. I started at five. I probably started competing more at age 10, 11. I'm great. I'm getting better”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “You only have to make two or three of them miss, and then boom, you're on top of them, at least for me. That was all my striking was predicated on it. It wasn't about, hey, I'm going to do damage on the feet in order to make something else happen. It was like, how do I clear this barrier, get a hold of you? And if you, I actually did the math one time. I think I got to take down. If you include the knockout round against Mos Vidal, I got to take down every round except two. So it was like 53 out of 55 rounds in MMA I got to take down. Somewhere in”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “I knew I wasn't going to be a full time boxer, so it's like, okay, how do I put a boxing camp together? So I found, you know, I had my ultimate Mike Rhodes. He came up and kind of lived with me-ish kind of thing for three months. I found a couple canine out of Michigan. He came over three weeks. He was great. I went to Freddie Roche for a week. So I kind of like, you know, try to get as many good of ideas as I could. And my thought was like, okay, well, if this dude sucks, I can just be tough and, you know, block a view punches, get him tired and then beat him up. If he's good, that's probably not much of my due about in the next three months because I was never good at boxing in the first place. All of my stand up in mixed martial arts was predicated on how do I get through the two or three punches that are going to come at me in the time I need to get a hold of them.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “So that's the next step. So, okay, I'm going to take this seriously. So I do my crutch for the six weeks. The next six weeks, it's still like really low weight bearing. Can't do anything, you know? So then I get down with the three months, which is like January. And I'm like, okay, I should start working out. So I started riding bike a little bit. And then, okay, now I'm fucking fat. I'm going to get in better shape because I haven't been able to do anything. So I'm going to start working out. And then that happened, right? So I'm like, okay, well, now I got three months. Gives me a good reason to get back in shape.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Yeah, I did. But it was, I told you, I started training for my head. I mean, once I had my hip surgery, they said, you know, for the first six weeks, you can't even walk. And it was hard for me to listen to him because by week four and a half, five, I was feeling pretty good. I want to get rid of my crutches. But I'm like, you know what? This is for the rest of my life. And if you get the, so if you get the real hip replacement, there's no wrestling. There's no nothing.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “He went hard. Yeah, the asshole gave me a point. I said, this is bullshit. Jordan, I told him during the match, like, this is bullshit. You're fucking going too hard right now. I'm not a wrestler anymore. I'm a fighter. I'm coming in here Yeah, so I had a really good idea. I mean, we wrestled together. I think he'll probably get mad because I think in the live go, we did the 12 or 15 minutes. I think I actually scored a takedown in that. I believe maybe or maybe it was a turn. Probably say, No, I didn't, but whatever. Yeah, so I knew what was going to happen. I knew what the outcome was going to be. I knew I could, I was hoping I could stay competitive and maybe lose like 10-2 or something. Yeah.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Anyway, so I was called like, I don't know, two weeks before the event and said, hey, you know, someone was supposed to wrestle Jordan Burroughs. It fell out. Would you wrestle him? I said, yeah, sure, why not? You know, and it's like, listen, I trained with him for four days the year before. I had a pretty good idea how the match was going to go. It wasn't going to go so well for me. But it's like, okay, you're missing a main event. I can bring because of where I'm at right now in my life, I can bring a lot of attention to wrestling. I can help you guys raise a bunch of money for Beat the Streets. My goal is, I think I thought I could get one takedown or turn on him was kind of my goal for the match. I didn't get there.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Corrupt and all that. But it goes to the Beat the Streets organization, who then starts the clubs in New York. So I don't know what to do to make.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “They usually raise like a million dollars. They started all these programs in New York City to get, which I really wonder what they're doing with the money now because they probably can't have the kids wrestling because New York's crazy. Anyway, I think the”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “So, I never answered your initial question How did I feel? So the Jordan Burrows match, I was not in wrestling shape at all, meaning wrestling's heavily depend, especially in neutral positions, heavily dependent on timing and other things. I was wrestling very, very minimally because I started fighting again. So my athletic shape was great, but it was mainly for fighting. I wasn't wrestling. So I think they were actually trying to do Burroughs Dake at the beat the streets. It's the biggest fundraiser in wrestling every single year.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Especially a few of those years with daycare, the name Andrew Howe, but it was a really competitive match as David Taylor had really competitive match with him, Isaiah Martinez even got in there, Deeringer. So he had some really competitive matches before he ever got to Jordan Burrows.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “And they went at it. But one of the contentions Kyle had for years, and there's still this rule if you win a world level medal the following year, you sit out until the very end of the American trials and they do a best two or three. So every time previously that Kyle had wrestled Jordan, he had to come through a tournament on Saturday. Okay, probably three matches, and then on Sunday he would wrestle Jordan in a best two out of three, right? So his contention was. I'm only wrestling Jordan at a disadvantage because I have to compete on Saturday and then competing, which it's a fair argument. It really is, but I also see USA Wrestling's point is like if someone wins a world medal, we're going to reward them because we want that person on the team again.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “In college. Both of them met their peaks at 165 pounds. So completely hypothetical. And so Jordan called in. He was all pissed at me for picking Kyle Dake. He wants to come on the next day and argue his point. So I said, F that. That's dumb. We had to pick a winner. We had to do something hypothetical. So that I call Cal Dakar. I said, Kyle, Jordan's going to come on and argue his case in the morning. If he's going to do that, why don't you come in and argue your case So, no one else knew Kyle was coming on the podcast. So they both show up.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Listen, here's what I said. Kyle Dick's four times state champion. Yes, I said a winner. I said, Kyle Dick wins 2-1 on a minute and six ride time, which, I mean, we're talking. As close as it gets, as close as it gets for Kyle Daco, who's a four time NCA champion.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “I didn't tell any of them. Okay. So Jordan got mad. We talked about this fake match drink Crone, right? Yeah. We had to make up something to talk about because there's obviously no matches. So we talk about this fake match”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Yeah. So 13 Kyle came out and he had the one throw, but then he lost one of the matches decisively. And then he was hurting 14. And in 16, Kyle Digg actually went up to 86 kilograms. So actually in 16, at the trials, we had, so Jake Herbert was number one seed. He was former as Guy Russell. I was a former world silver medalist. So you had David Taylor, who had not made a team yet, who is now world champion Olympic champion. You had Kyle Dake in the bracket, who was a two-time world champion now, and you had Jaden Cox in the bracket who had not made any teams yet. But is now what a four time world medals, two-time world champion. And then obviously Jaden came out on top of that and won his first Olympic medal, Olympic Bronze Medal. So Kyle didn't wrestle Jordan in 16. And Kyle's contention the whole time”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Kyle's, so he's so good, right? I mean, I think his performance at the Olympics was shocking to, I mean, we know that happened to Kyle Dake. You know, he's been a guy who's competing with Jordan Burroughs forever. And obviously he was on the losing side for a while. And now he's on the winning side. But I think a lot of people thought it was a coin flip. And I think actually Kyle Digg made it feel like. Not a coin flip. Now, to me, it feels like. Kyle Daga's going to win that match significantly more times than he isn't, is what it feels like”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “Well, so he was never, I mean, he didn't really excel on the mat in kind of either style, in freestyle he has got some good lace transitions, but in folks that like his whole, like his entire college career, I think he has like 10 pins, which is almost nothing, you know? So he was gaining no value off the top position. He was good enough on most people to get off bottom without it being an issue. But it wasn't like, oh my gosh, this is an area where we really have to be careful. There's a lot of things here. You know, it's just he wasn't gaining value there. Whereas in freestyle, I don't want to say never, but the amount of times he gets turned is incredibly rare, very, very rare. And he does have lace transitions, so he gets a lot of points there. And obviously freestyle is...”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Yeah, correct. Yeah. So Michael Channel wrote him for two minutes. Plus, and that was his junior year, not his senior year, sure, right? But it's close. So, I think there's some things there. I think the interesting thing would be if I would have stuck around, right? So I chose to go into mixed martial arts after 2008, I would have been 74 and he would have been 74. So we would have had to wrestle. And then I think that the freestyle Jordan Borough's puzzle is a lot more difficult to solve than the Folkestyle Jordan Borough's puzzle. And I think I don't think he would, I think he would acknowledge that he's much better at freestyle than he was at Folkestyle, although he was very good. He's better.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “You know, he had some competitive matches as junior senior year. He had a 2 1 win over, or maybe it was 3-2 over Michael Chandler, who was my teammate who's fighting the USC now. He had a 2-1 win over Tyler Caldwell. So I think you can glean some insight into that. He got ridden, he got so mad about this up on a podcast. During Crono, we had to make up all kinds of bullshit to talk about. And we were doing the last 10 years best 165s. And I said, Kyle Dake would ride him for over a minute. Oh, wow. He got so mad he wanted to come on the podcast the next day. So hopefully he doesn't listen to this. He'd be like, fuck you, man. But, you know.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “The biggest thing with Jordan Bro's double leg wasn't his level of explosiveness, it was his level of persistence. He would shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot. And a lot of times it would be from fun creative angles and out of scrambles. Boom, all of a sudden he's on you, you know. And he was just super persistent with it. And I think that was probably the key. And then you saw, you know, when he came out to one of the first world championships in 2011, it was kind of that type of mentality. And then shortly after then, obviously everyone was starting to lower their stance getting lower. And he developed a really good mantis go-behind series where he would go one way or the other way. Then he started developing a really good low single ankle pick type thing, you know? And then his hand fighting got really tremendous like 15, 16, 17. His hand fighting was really good. And now I just commented the 21 trials like a few of the defensive sequences he got into. It's like, holy shit. Like just not from an athletics standpoint, but from a technical standpoint, the things he were doing was just tremendous.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “But there's a group dou He hit his double leg for the first time against Alex Deerjan. Yeah, so that's like when people think about Jordan Brose, they think about the double egg. Because in his early years, Fire had a great double leg, right? And even, so in those years, I would say.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “So, what I said with that is like, He was still trying to be the best in the world. I was just trying to go work out Jordan Burrows because I enjoyed wrestling. Is like someone who at that point when he has five world titles at that four or five at that point a lot. And so I used my high school kids is like, hey, this is a guy who's the best in the world who's bring someone in and saying, well, how do I do this? How do I do that? What about this? What about that? And so the level of inquisitiveness in it, that's a hard word, inquisitiveness he has, is really impressive. And then it's obvious why he got to the level he did because he's figuring out all these little situations. And that's honestly one of the biggest things I think wrestlers, a lot of wrestlers fail to do as they get older, even when they get to early college age. They say, this is my style, this is what I do. I'm going to lift and work out hard. And I'm not going to add anything to my game. Whereas you've seen many progressions in Jordan Burrow's game who just made his 10th world team. And if you have a really keen eye, you've been able to watch him change. I've been watching him since 2007.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Lightning dome. Yeah, my buddy's name was Lightning Luke Smith in high school, and he was the first person I saw do it. So, usually, when I see someone do something”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “Ground or it was like one was a chess wrap, one for headlock, one was, I don't remember, it's called, we called the lightning dump, but it's a”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “We only went full live for one, I think it was like 12 or 15 minute ago, where it was just go wrestle. We did a bunch of simulated live, but obviously he had, so I was a senior in college when he was a freshman at Nebraska. And so our teams had dueled each other. He was obviously a lot smaller at that point in time. But he had followed my career. And so when I went in there, it was like, hey, I know you're really good at this position. What about this position? What are you trying to do? How exactly does it work? And then let's wrestle there. Know, and then, hey, what about this position? And so we would spend 30 to 40 minutes talking about that position.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “You approach her mentally, you know? Well, the Burroughs thing, obviously, it's okay. So when I retired the first time in 2017, Burroughs was the only current, we'll say really elite level wrestler that I never trained with. I was really good friends with Nebraska's coach Stillium. I said, hey, I just want, I'm going to pay my own way. I want to come down to Chamber Jordan because I want to see what it feels like. I want to get in there and mix it up. I mix it up with David Taylor and Kyle Dake. I mean, there's just some adult wrestling that I love. And so I flew myself down there in January of 2018, and I spent four days training with Jordan. It was a really good time. It gave me some great insight into how he thinks and, you know, what a great champion he is.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “And watching that card, it's like, damn, kind of be fun to box someone who I know sucks, who I know can beat that. That's what would be fun, you know, because like the training, the preparation was fun. But then obviously I got my butt kicked. That sucked. You know, can I swear on this podcast?”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “Probably not very good. I think he's pretty good actually, and I'm not very good now with a low point for me. So when I started training for that, I was like 215 pounds, which is the heaviest I've ever been. I came off my hip surgery. I literally, like when I said, yes, like I'll do it, like I had literally started working out like the week before for the first time in my, you know, since it's a surgery because I wasn't able to do anything. So could I perform better? Yeah. But now after watching inbox tire and like, if you ask me, Ben, can you be Tyran? Probably not I don't think I can be Tyran. In Boston boxing, yeah. So my chances of beating him.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “The way I was thinking about when I was deciding whether to do it or not, because I got the offer, it's like, okay, is this money? Can it change my life? Yeah, it could, right? It's not going to double my net worth, but it's going to add significantly make my life easier. Number two is like when I was in high school, we used to do boxing matches for free just because we thought it was fun. We didn't have something going off Friday night. Me and my buddies would get together and we had some boxing goals on basement and we'd punch each other in the head. So it's like for something I think is enjoyable now that they're paying me a whole bunch of money. Yeah, sure, I'll do it.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “Oh, well, I mean, the fight specifically, I got cracked with an overhand right. So, I mean, it kind of sucks. I would say, you know, this is where I was like, I really don't care. And everyone's like, why would you turn to your reputation? It's like, well, I wanted to do it. I had an enjoyable time training and in the buildup. Obviously, I wasn't skillful enough to get the win. But even despite the fact that I know what happened, if someone asked me to do it again, I probably would have done it again, you know. And so.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “I have an issue with not being able to give really exact answers, so I hate giving you an answer that, like, I don't feel like it's 100% calculated. So I would like to see them go once more because I would like to see, hey, because if Tyrant can turn up the pace and J can't handle it, then I think it's an 8, 1 or 9, 2, right? If it goes the exact same way and maybe Tyrone's a close split decision, I'm saying, oh, it's probably going to be close to every single time. We're probably going to get a five to five type of thing, you know? So it's like, I feel like out of one match, it's not totally indicative of what the future is going to look like.”

    2021-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source