#askren

"Hey Ren! You said I could nap here right? Because I believe it is naptime o'clock now."

-@ask-tango-tattooparlor

He snickers, but he’s away in his own world.

hey yall….. im back…..

welcome to AskRendog, where you can …. Ask the one the only Ren diggity Dawg questions!!!

“is this blog related to the old askren blog??” I hear everyone ask… well! Great question! Yes! Everything is still canon!

Yes! Here are a variety of my faves on AO3:

Quietus Riotous by XxmerthurcatxX

No Filter by pukingflowers

Spring, Summer, Spring by yogurtgun

Do It Again by thisgirlsays22

Dandelions For You by xdandelionxbloomx

Ok that’s what I’ve got atm, but tbh there are sooo many new good ones every day it’s hard to keep up 😂❤️

Joey

October 20th, 2019

When the UFC signed up to do a multi million dollar stretch of shows in Singapore, I have to imagine this wasn't QUITE on the menu. This show isn't awful but compared to what's coming down the pike with the MSG card, the Vegas PPV, a really solid card in South Korea and such, this card is only worth discussing due to its early start time. Still there's good stuff to discuss here! It's a nifty 11 fight card starting early in the morning with some good HW fights on it and an "intriguing" main event. Let's see what happens.

Fights: 11

Debuts: Loma Lookboonmee, Don'tale Mayes

Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations: 4 (Karol Rosa vs Julia Avila CANCELLED/Jarjis Danho vs Greg Hardy CANCELLED/Yan Xionan OUT, Randa Markos IN vs Ashley Yoder/Brad Tavares vs Ian Heinisch CANCELLED)

Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC): 6 (Demian Maia, Stevie Ray, Michael Johnson, Beneil Dariush, Sergey Pavlovich, Randa Markos)

Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC:

Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC: 7 (Demian Maia, Muslim Salikhov, Laureano Staropoli, Beneil Dariush, Maurice Green, Ashley Yoder, Sergey Pavlovich)

Main Card Record Since Jan 1st 2017 (in the UFC): 17-19-1

Ben Askren- 1-1 Demian Maia- 3-3 Michael Johnson- 2-3 Stevie Ray- 2-3 Muslim Salikhov- 2-1 Laureano Staropoli- 2-0 Beneil Dariush- 2-2-1 Frank Camacho- 2-3 Cyril Gane- 1-0 Don'Tale Mayes- 0-0

Fights By Weight Class (yearly number here):

Lightweight- 3 (69) Heavyweight- 3 (34) Welterweight-  2 (64) Women’s Strawweight- 2 (28) Featherweight-  1 (53)

Women’s Flyweight-  (31) Middleweight-  (40) Light Heavyweight-  (39) Bantamweight- (53) Flyweight-  (15) Women’s Featherweight- (8) Women’s Bantamweight-  (18)

2019 Number Tracker

Debuting Fighters (37-58-1)- Loma Lookboonmee, Don'tale Mayes

Short Notice Fighters (28-36)- Randa Markos

Second Fight (52-35)- Movsar Evloev, Raphael Pessoa, Ciryl Gane, Rafael Fiziev

Cage Corrosion (Fighters who have not fought within a year of the date of the fight) (22-38-1)-

Undefeated Fighters (38-37-2)- Ciryl Gane, Movsar Evloev

Fighters with at least four fights in the UFC with 0 wins over competition still in the organization (11-8)- Frank Camacho, Stevie Ray

Weight Class Jumpers (Fighters competing outside of the weight class of their last fight even if they’re returning BACK to their “normal weight class”) (29-22)- Michael Johnson

Twelve Precarious Ponderings

1- I've seen some folks who take the Askren vs Maia booking as some sort of punishment for Askren because it's an early morning show overseas BUT let's be 100% fair and point out that Askren spent the better part of the last 4-5 years fighting in Asia and SHOULD have some semblance of name recognition. In this case he probably serves more good as the main eventer on a random Asian show than he does as the 3rd or 4th fight in MSG or what have you. I mean if he doesn't then why did you even sign him?

2- Who is this main event appealing to? I can understand SOME genuine appeal in this fight for the grappling purists out there I suppose but even that feels limited. I just think if you took 100 MMA fans and brought them into a room and said "Would you like five rounds of Askren vs Maia?", the slimmest of slim percentage of them would say "Oh man, love it. Bring me all of that." It's a fine main event pitting name value vs name value and I guess style vs style but the appeal feels so limited. I really hope this isn't what that group in Singapore expected to be paying for when they made this multi-million dollar deal with the UFC for the next five years or so.

3- Even with a win, is Askren officially "done" in terms of flirtations as a #1 contender? Usually a win over Demian Maia takes you right to #1 contender status. In this instance, it feels like Askren is sort of kind of in the Vitor range where anything short of a string of stoppages will keep him firmly from the title picture.

4- Is  Michael Johnson vs Stevie Ray the most random co-main of 2019? I can't imagine it's got a lot of competition for the spot.

5- Laureano Staropoli vs Muslim Salikhov is a really interesting fight for a variety of reasons. For starters, Staropoli has real potential to become yet another solid Argentinian fighter in the UFC's fold. He's 2-0 and coming off a decision win over Thiago Alves in Brazil. He's a balanced striker who seems to excel in those back and forth firefights where he can outlast his opposition. Thats going to be a problem against Muslim Salikhov who is beginning to find his groove in the UFC. Every second this fight stays standing and at a pace befitting of Muslim is a second closer to losing in a most brutal fashion. Can Staropoli wrestle more than we've seen him do so far?

6- If I had a fighter like Frank Camacho, I'm not sure that I'd put him up against a guy who is primarily coming to wrestle with Beneil Dariush. Dariush is going to try to Drew Dobert it except he can't strike as good as Dober so we're setting up for a lot of wall and stall. Thumbs down.

7- If you're not hot on heavyweights, lemme chit chat with you a bit about how some of these HW fights are pretty good:

With the UFC talking about doing a show in France in 2020, Ciryl Gane figures to be an impressive dude to follow. The muay thai stud/Ngannou sparring buddy won his UFC debut without much issue and the French born fighter will be given ample opportunities to show out. Dontale Mayes is the rare THREE time DWCS talent who lost his first fight but won the next two by stoppage. Mayes' upside may be in a role like this as a hard hitting prospect tester. One thing which stood out was how much weight he lost between all three Contenders Series fights.

Sergey Pavlovich vs Maurice Greene is a REALLY interesting fight. Mo Greene was a bit of a gimmick who got the villain edit on TUF but he's fought three times while the winner of the show has pretty much disappeared. Greene hits really hard, attacks from awkward angles, doesn't have good wrestling but has some wacky BJJ off of his back and so far his cardio hasn't been awfl. On the other hand, Sergey Pavlovich has gone from Russian prospect du jour to "maybe he's good?" UFC fighter. Pavlovich's first win was against Junior Albini and Mo Greene's best win as of right now is Junior Albini so here we are. Good evenly matched fight on paper.

Raphael Pessoa vs Jeff Hughes kicks off the show and Huges was considered to be one of the top HW prospects prior to getting into the UFC. To this point he was upset by Maurice Greene (who he had beaten on the regional circuit) and looked to be potentially en route to getting slop stopped by Todd Duffee prior to an eye poke no contest. This is like the bottom of the barrel in terms of opposition and if Hughes loses this one, his career is in deep doo doo.