I have no idea, but it’s all over the place. He apparently somehow made purple pretty quickly from what I hear, so he must be a very quick study. I imagine it’ll take him quite awhile to gain a black belt though. He has the length to be dangerous off his back, I imagine, but we haven’t seen that from him yet. That’s one area I’m hoping better competition will put him so we can see these purple belt skills.

True, I was trying to fit in the whole “Josh Koscheck might be pissed to learn someone stole his haircut”

Eh, Mark Bader’s commentary is a small thing to endure considering how hard dude works traveling to all these regional shows and making sure that we get to see prospects like Askren developing.

Harris could have benefited greatly from some butterfly guard to keep from getting his head beat in there

for whatever reason he always seemd to have a bad rep as a wrestler but I really liked him.

I’ll add that. From what I hear, he trains mostly in MO, but goes down to Florida at times. I’m not sure if he does or not though as that’s unconfirmed.

He’s not just another wrestler; he’s an incredible, dynamic, and aggressive wrestler. He has a great deal of proven athletic ability and technical potential. Additionally, he is learning and improving at an impressive rate. He doesn’t need to beat somebody with name for any of that to be true.

The point of the piece has went over your head. It isn’t to talk him up like he’s this unbelievable guy already, but more as a “keep an eye” on him in the future. One of the things I do when watching even sleeper events is keep an eye on some of these unknowns. After all, they will be the future when guys like Chuck, Wanderlei, Anderson Silva, Georges St. Pierre, all these superstars are gone.

With that said, he’s facing competition that’s par for where he’s at. Both guys he faced were pretty much strikers. Both guys also caught him with solid punches. I’d like to see his ground game tested against a jiu-jitsu guy next.

to what has been said by Leland Roling and Rundownloser:

Askren started focusing on MMA the end of last year. His game has grown so fast, and he’s already had 2 mma fights resulting in wins. Also to note, he’s not focusing utilizing his wrestling background. He’s making sure to develop a solid striking game and BJJ game. Some other guys don’t work has hard to get such a well-rounded game. He’s got some great help at ATT-MO.

Granted Askren was quite a bit better than his competition, but he’s wanting to stay close to MU while he starts his career. From what I know, it seems important to him to have his friends and family there and the community who backed him through his college wrestling career. The caliber of fighters in/around central MO isn’t like that of Vegas. But he’s working on bringing high class MMA productions to the area via Headhunter Productions.

Askren’s got a ton of integrity and motivation. He’s most definitely somebody to keep an eye on. I imagine it won’t be long before his name is common to the non-hardcore fans.

I don’t think that ATT-MO is considered an affiliate as much as it is just an alternate location. On the main ATT page it’s listed under “”http://www.americantopteam.com/locations.php" target="new">Locations".

Also here is the ATT-MO webpage.

Maynard’s fight was better in terms of surroundings. A square cage and a bunch of people standing around… can you guess what nostalgic feel that gave me? You got it! Rio Heroes!

You Want Revenge?