Daniel Cormier has admitted that he was among those who tried to convince Ben Askren not to compete in his retirement wrestling match, only to watch his friend prove everyone wrong.
Speaking with Askren following the event, Cormier came clean about his initial reaction when Ben first shared his plans.
“Sadly, I was one of those people that tried to put a limit on you,” Cormier told Askren. “When you first told me, I called you like… Hey, you know when it’s worse when you got a friend that sends you a text like, ‘Hey, you got time for a conversation?'”
Askren confirmed he saw it coming. “I knew,” he said with a laugh. The call did not go unnoticed by Askren’s wife Amy either, who reportedly posted on Instagram that “trying to tell Ben Askren not to wrestle is like telling a fish that they can’t swim.”
Ben recalled telling Cormier afterward, “Daniel tried talking me out of it, but you know, that wasn’t going to go down like that.”
What made the match all the more remarkable was how much Askren had kept to himself. He had undergone a double lung transplant and concealed the full extent of his physical condition from nearly everyone, including Cormier.
“I didn’t know how limited I was,” Askren said. “I didn’t even tell you how bad I was doing. I didn’t know if I could wrestle hard for six minutes.”
Despite the uncertainty, Askren went in with a clear game plan against Belal Muhammad. He aimed to keep the distance with hand combat, force his opponent into poor shots, and capitalize on any opening.
“I got him to push a little too hard where I got a wizard kick on the edge,” Askren explained. “I got him to snap too hard where I shot into a double on the edge.”
He also had a reliable gut wrench ready if he could get on top, though he never got that opportunity. When Muhammad pushed hard in the third round, Askren had simply run out of gas.
“I was like, I don’t have anything left. There’s nothing left in the tank.”
Still, in the end, Cormier walked back everything he had said before the match.
“After watching last weekend, you just literally showed that you can do just amazing things,” he told Askren. “You showed people not to be limited by stuff. You can never become a v*ctim to your circumstance.”
Askren closed out the night by leaving his wrestling shoes on the mat and walking out to a roaring ovation in his hometown, with his wife and children watching from the crowd. Cormier called it the perfect ending.
“Only certain people should have that opportunity,” he said. “I think you’ve got to accomplish something in this thing to have earned the right to leave your shoes out on the mat.”
