Ben Askren: Georges St-Pierre should fight me because ‘I can’t hit that hard’

Late last week, Ben Askren successfully defended the ONE Championship welterweight title by stopping Shinya Aoki in less than a minute of action. This fight also served as his swan song, as announced by ONE’s founder Chatri Sityodtong two months in advance.

But even after a strong statement win for his retirement fight, Askren does not seem content with his accomplishments. Less than a day after facing Aoki, “Funky” immediately went on Twitter to implicitly call out UFC middleweight champion Georges St-Pierre.

On Monday’s episode of The MMA Hour, Askren spoke with Ariel Helwani to double down on his challenge to St-Pierre.

“I wouldn’t fight Tyron Woodley, we go way, way back,” Askren said (transcript via MMA Mania). “But there is this other guy who is a very famous welterweight named Georges St-Pierre who doesn’t seem to have a dance partner right now.”

“He doesn't seem to want to fight Tyron or Robert Whittaker. So hey, he doesn’t want to get hit hard. I can’t hit that hard so we might as well get in there and get after it.”

Askren never had the chance to step inside the UFC cage, and he apparently sees a fight with St-Pierre as a good opportunity to do so. Looking at it from St-Pierre’s end, he sees it as a sensible move to make.

“As long as Georges isn’t of the mindset that he would never fight me for reasons I outlined earlier, I don’t see why he wouldn’t want to. He hasn’t seemed to call out Whittaker or Tyron Woodley since his last fight got over,” Askren said. “He needs a dance partner and I will come to Montreal and we will fill out the Bell Centre.”

Askren’s interview begins at the 2:35:20 mark of the video below.