Coach Roufus: KO loss to Masvidal will only make Askren better in long run

“He’s just a special breed and this is only going to make him better.”

Not like this.

Formerly undefeated UFC welterweight contender Ben Askren was knocked out just five seconds into his highly anticipated grudge match with Jorge Masvidal at UFC 239, and coach Duke Roufus is heartbroken for him.

Speaking to MMA Fighting’s Alexander K. Lee in a recent interview, Roufus said it was tough to watch his friend KO’d in such devastating fashion but tipped his hat to ‘Gamebred’ for scoring the fastest knockout in UFC history.

“Ben’s my friend, you see him hurt like that,” Roufus said. “But I gotta take my hat off to Jorge. I know Ben and Jorge don’t get along, I get along well with Jorge, I like Jorge a lot. So fair play, it was a great move, high risk, high reward. It was a very risky move, it paid off for him. I’m that type of guy that believes in ‘fortune favors the bold’ and he was quite bold on that move and it’s going to go down in history as one of the best moves ever in the UFC.”

As unfortunate as the loss may be, Roufus, who trains Askren out of Roufusport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, believes it will only spur on ‘Funky’ to become a better fighter in the long run.

“It could have happened differently,” Roufus continued. “He could have missed and Ben could have been wrestling and on top of Jorge, so we’re all gonna some days hate the fight game. Winning is awesome and losing you want to cry your eyes out, but Ben is a very resilient person. He has a special, special mindset and you saw the way he owns everything. That’s what I really like about Ben. He’s 100 percent transparent, I’ve never worked with someone like him, he’s just a special breed and this is only going to make him better.”

Roufus believes it’s imperative that Askren takes a few months off to recover from the loss and estimates his prized student will return to the Octagon by the end of the year.

“Maybe by the end of the year. But I’m not a doctor either,” he said. “The other thing, I looked at the video, he got caught more on the neck, which I’ve been told by physicians is the safest place—kind of when I used to fight I used to kick at the neck, it’s almost like choking someone. When you kick them on the neck there’s not as much damage, it’s almost like a choke-out, but I think that’s much less than when you get rattled in the head.

“They’re all dangerous, of course, but I think where the blow was, it’s not—When Ben was moving, I was really scared, I couldn’t see his face. I didn’t see the blow clearly, I thought he had received the knee directly to the face. That’s what I was most worried about when he was moving real bad, I was very concerned. But there’s not a mark on his face at all, which is really fortunate.”

Following his loss to Masvidal, Askren dropped four places to #9 in the official UFC welterweight rankings and likely has a long road ahead of him back to title contention.