Ben Askren - Funky: My Defiant Path Through the Wild World of Combat Sports

Advance Praise for Funky

This is a wonderful and revealing look at one of the greatest American athletes of the last twenty years. From wrestling to MMA, very few have enjoyed success quite like Ben Askren has. The best part? He did it his way. Unapologetically. Even when most have advised against it. I have immense respect for the approach he took to life and fighting, and that comes through in these pages. This book is honest, and Id expect nothing less from Ben Askren.

Ariel Helwani

A PERMUTED PRESS BOOK

ISBN: 978-1-63758-299-2

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-63758-300-5

Funky:

My Defiant Path Through the Wild World of Combat Sports

2022 by Ben Askren

All Rights Reserved

Cover Art by Rebecca Mindenhall

Interior Design by Yoni Limor

This is a work of nonfiction. All people, locations, events, and situation are portrayed to the best of the authors memory.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Permuted Press, LLC

New York Nashville

permutedpress.com

Published in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to the many people who helped shape my journey. I surely wouldnt have gotten as far as I did without you. Its also dedicated to all of the kids out there who might be wondering if you have what it takes to make it. Its a long journey. You are going to have ups and downs and you may never reach the summitbut, when you look back in the end, I promise you, youll never regret all of the effort you put in.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

C hanging a culture is not easy, but it was beginning to happen in our wrestling program at the University of Missouri. What we needed to get to the next level was a game changerthe recruit that would make that giant leap to become our first NCAA Champion. Who would that be?

In my early phone calls with Ben, his personality jumped out at me. Many people viewed Ben as arrogant or cocky, and maybe even a partier with his tie-dye shirts and the crazy stunts hed pull at tournaments. Through our conversations, though, I really got to know himand what stood out was his intelligence, as well as a passion for the sport that was not typical. Both his mindset and the belief he had in himself were extraordinary, and I loved it. Growing up as a coachs son, my dad would mention that the great ones possess a confidence that is rare, and it elevates the people around them to believe in themselves and makes others better.

Ben was his own person and I sold him on a vision to be the first NCAA Champion at Mizzou. I told him what coaches were saying about Mizzouthat we couldnt have a champ, that we couldnt compete in the Big 12, and that you couldnt have success in the international style if you went to Mizzou. I told Ben that was going to change, and he was going to be a big part of it. Ben liked being the underdogthe guy people doubted could accomplish things at a high level. Hes also a big Muhammad Ali fan, which was something I learned along the way. I ended all personal notes to him with a quote from Ali. Im fortunate to say my approach worked. Ben made the decision to come to Mizzou and the rest is historyor Funky !

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Funky because Ben isand always wasso honest about where he was as an athlete. He never made excuses or blamed others. He always had a plan for what he needed to do to get better. He was willing to work tirelessly to get to that next level. Too many times we see the success that people have and think it was easy to obtain. Thankfully, Ben takes you on a journey through his entire careerhow he developed physically, which was not easy, and how he developed mentally. He is the most advanced athlete Ive ever coached on the mental side. Funky details the why and how he evolved into his funky style of wrestling. He shares the setbacks he incurred throughout his career and how he wouldnt let those deter him, but instead, let them drive him to figure it out, grow, and improve. His beginner mindset from the start of his wrestling career, through his MMA success, to his current passion of running the Askren Wrestling Academy, is a big factorif not the biggestof why hes had enormous success every step of the way.

Reading Funky reminded me of the importance of why I coach and how Ben positively impacted me for the better. It reminded me of the positive impact he had on his teammates, and now the young boys and girls he coaches at the Askren Wrestling Academy. The success he and his brother and all of the AWA coaches are having is not a surprise to me, and wont be to anyone who reads Funky .

Lastly, I called him honest, but he wasnt completely honest in the book ... I did make the call to him before the Junior Nationals.

Brian Smith

Head Wrestling Coach

University of Missouri

If you have the opportunity to play this game of life you need to appreciate every moment. A lot of people dont appreciate the moment until it passes.

Kanye West

F irst of all, there was always the caveat.

When I retired from mixed martial arts (MMA) in late 2017, I actually meant it. I wasnt playing a game. I was thirty-three years old, undefeated, and a reigning champion, but I was fresh out of real challenges at ONE Championship, the Singapore-based promotion I was fighting with. Before MMA I was a two-time national champion at the University of Missouri, twice winning the Hodge Trophy as the countrys best collegiate wrestler. Under the circumstances, walking away felt like the right thing to do. It was something I could control. What I had not been able to control was realizing a long-held desire to compete against the very best welterweights in the world, most of whom belonged to the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). For a decade the UFC had been, for me, an exclusive club with velvet ropes, and my namein spite of my accomplishments, and for reasons that remain mysterious to this daywas just never on the guest list.

So I retired after defeating Shinya Aoki in Singapore, but I added a caveat: I would remain retired, unless I get the opportunity to prove Im the best . That left the door very publicly open for somebody to come along and change my mind. I emphasized this during a popular two-hour appearance on Joe Rogans podcast in early 2018, one of the most watched pods Rogan did that year, making my position crystal clear.

Was I subtweeting the UFC by appending my retirement like that? Of course I was. But it was a justified subtweet. UFC president Dana White had planted the seed years before that I wasnt interested in fighting the best guys in the world, which meant plenty of fans in his echo chamber held this notion to be true. Whenever my name was brought up to himwhich was frequentlyDana made it part of a running narrative that I was ducking real challenges and taking the easy path by fighting no-names in other promotions.

That claim couldnt have been further from the truth.

Anybody who knew me, going back well before I wrestled at Mizzou or competed with the 2008 US Olympic team, understood just what kind of competitor I was. I am obsessively competitive and always have been. You cant be the best unless you beat the best, and honestly, to me that meant the perceived best having to beat me . Id been playing out fights with longtime UFC welterweight Georges St-Pierre in my head for years. I contemplated on an endless loop just what a great foil I would make for then-champion Johny Hendricks, a rival whom I actively disliked since wrestling against him in high school. Who doesnt love a heated backstory? Besides, I could do what no other welterweight could do I could make a Johny Hendricks fight interesting. I thought about some of the welterweights I had ragdolled in training sessions during my early years in MMAback when I was just starting out in 200809who were being coronated on a weekly basis by the MMA media. I had it in me to smash up a lot of old notions and ruin all of tomorrows parties, and I wasnt afraid to talk about it.