Quote: Conor McGregor Is Barely Best In World
Retired undefeated welterweight fighter Ben Askren continues to speak out about the sport of MMA.
He has been vocal in recent interviews about wanting to come out of retirement for an MMA return in the UFC.
Throughout these interviews, he has been asked who he would like to fight if he did sign with the UFC.
Most of the time, he has said former UFC middleweight and welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre.
In a recent interview on MMA on Sirius XM, he was asked about UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz.
.@Benaskren tells @MieshaTate & @realOCsports that when it comes to a potential matchup with Conor McGregor in the UFC both he and Conor know that it would be a terrible idea for Mystic Mac to accept. pic.twitter.com/UNZDjcOQ0b
— MMA on SiriusXM (@MMAonSiriusXM) February 22, 2018
However, Askren doesn’t seem to be up for taking these potential fights.
“Nate Diaz sucks. I mean, yeah. [Conor] McGregor is barely the best in the world,” Askren said (transcript via BJPenn.com). “I mean, the guy beat up Nate Diaz barely a couple of times and Nate Diaz himself is a very mediocre UFC fighter. There is no way you can argue that sentiment because all you have to do is look at [Diaz’s] record.”
“The record shows he’s a very middle-of-the-road UFC fighter, he’s a 500 guy,” Askren said of Diaz. “He wins half, he loses half. Sure, he’s had some good wins, but he’s also had some terrible losses.”
Askren continues to say that he wants to fight St-Pierre in Montreal sometime in late 2019. According to the former One champion, a fight with McGregor doesn’t make much sense for him.
“And you know McGregor, he lands a couple of good punches against Eddie Alvarez,” Askren said. “Is he good? Sure, but I’d like to see him defend his belt, he’s never defended his belt ever. But sure, if McGregor wanted to fight me – I don’t know, is he the best in the world? I guess since he’s got the belt.”
“Sure, if he wanted to come up and fight me, that’d be fine. He knows that’s a terrible idea, I know that’s a terrible idea. He’s not gonna do it. Let’s just stick with the game plan and go with Georges [St-Pierre].”
