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Ben Askren gives Dan Hornbuckle the business to win Bellator Welterweight tournament
By Zach Arnold | June 17, 2010
This was not the outcome that the pundits had predicted. Yeah? Yeah.
Ben Askren was fighting on home turf, sort of speaking, when he took on Dan Hornbuckle Thursday night in Kansas City. The KC crowd was definitely lively for the fight and by the third round you could hear them doing “Mizzou” chants, given that Columbia is only a couple of hours Southeast from KC.
In round one, Askren just manhandled Hornbuckle and did what he wanted. He landed strikes to the back, got top position, hammered Hornbuckle in the face with punches, and repeated the process. When Hornbuckle tried to stand up, Askren easily took him down. There was one point where Hornbuckle got up while Askren was on his back and within a couple of seconds, Hornbuckle was on the ground and Askren was on top of him. As far as the game of positioning goes, this was about as one-sided of an affair as you could get.
In round two, Hornbuckle tried a front neck lock but Askren got out of it and was back in top position. Dan tried for a triangle and Askren ended up using leg scissors on Hornbuckle’s throat. At that point, Ben was doing whatever the hell he wanted to do. In round three, Hornbuckle showed some life by going for a kimura from his back and then managed to get on top position while applying the hold. However, Askren gave up his back to get out of the hold and Hornbuckle would go for a choke sleeper hold. Unfortunately for Dan, Askren escaped that predicament just like he escaped everything else and regained his position.
All three judges scored the fight 30-27 in favor of Ben (though you could easily have given him the 29-28 score) and he now gets to face Lyman Good, who is Bellator’s season one Welterweight champion. It is not a fight that a lot of the pundits expected would take place, but it’s definitely going to be a very intriguing fight. When you add in the element of it being a five-rounder, we will see what kind of conditioning Askren has for a 25-minute fight. In tonight’s fight, his pacing seemed really good.
Ben Askren will always hold a place in my memory. Ben Askren will forever be the punchline to Dana White’s infamous rant about Jake Rossen and how Jake had spent time writing an article on Sherdog talking about Askren being one of the top prospects to enter MMA. Jake was onto something.
Topics: Bellator, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 11 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
In hindsight it shouldn’t have been a huge upset…I’d seen a number of people in the past say that Hornbuckle was ripping it up in Sengoku and Bellator but he wouldn’t fair so hot in the UFC’s wrestler heavy WW division as that was his Achilles’ heel.
Tonight Askren showed that those people were probably onto something…
Was pulling for The Handler, however, prior to the match was thinking that this could give an indication of how he would do against some of the dominant wrestler in another organization. The take-downs reminded me of Mousasi-Mo.
Thought there were some opportunities that Askren missed (triangle choke) in order to maintain dominant position.
Bellator needs to re-introduce the viewers to Lyman Good as well
The Japanese scene is sub-minor league right now.
Seriously…at some point people are going to have to accept that in the present day, success over there doesn’t mean automatic success here. In fact, it should almost bring out the caution flags for anyone getting scads of hype.
Gono
Gonoooo….???????
Another one bites the dust. Japan continues to look bad. Hornbuckle was starting to creep a little too high based on what he has done. He has no future at 170 due to his lack of wrestling.
ORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR just maybe it could be a case of Ben Askren being a can’t-miss prospect (unless you’re Dana White, haha) who happened to take out a tough fighter in Hornbuckle, who was RIGHTLY favored based off of his body of work versus Askren’s relative inexperience?
Why is everything anti-Japan with you? Was your grandfather a POW in WWII? Two American fighters fighting in an American-based promotion, and you’re talking about Japan. Obsessed, much?
I posted here and elsewhere that I thought Askren was going to win this one. That makes me an expert and possibly a genuis. Nevermind that I’ve also made such predictions as Hatton over Pacquiao and Clay Aiken over Ruben Studdard.
“When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”
We should have figured it out a long time ago.
Askren looked really good: kinda like a bigger Clay Guida. Can’t complain about that.