Bellator welterweight champion Ben Askren isn't one to shy away from making his opinion heard. There's a distinct possibility that Askren, who has no fights left on his Bellator contract, will end up in the UFC, where he is expected to be thrown right into the mix with the UFC's other mid-tier and top-tier welterweights. Having watched Countdown to UFC 164, which premiered last night, Askren made a comment regarding the UFC not including Josh Barnett's history of PED use dating back to his title win over Randy Couture:
Barnett of course had the UFC heavyweight belt stripped after he tested positive for 3 banned substances, thus the 11 year absence from the organization. "The Warmaster" caught wind of this and replied with this:
To which Askren retorted:
Barnett ended (for now) their conversation by calling Askren 'a prick':
Shayna Baszler, who Barnett trains, also interjected herself into the conversation with a defense of her mentor, refuting another person's tweet that Barnett "killed" Affliction after his failed drug test before his scheduled fight against Fedor Emelianenko. She also told Askren to "do some research" regarding Barnett's failed drug tests post-Couture bout, but for the sake of brevity we'll leave out the several additional tweets between her and Askren. You can follow the entire stream of thoughts by clicking on this link.
That's certainly a hell of a lot to digest. Do you think Askren was right to not only call out Josh Barnett's first failed drug test, but to call out the UFC -- a potential future employer -- for their erasure of that fact on their Countdown program?
SBN coverage of UFC 164: Henderson vs. Pettis
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