Jorge Masvidal KO’s Ben Askren With Fastest Knockout In UFC History

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Jorge Masvidal made history last night beating Ben Askren with the fastest knockout ever seen in UFC. 

I can’t say I know a lot about UFC but I’m pretty sure there’s a lot which goes into a fight even before it takes place. The selection of opponents, the scheduling, the training and preparation; it must take months.

So naturally, after all that, I think it’s safe to say the fighters would want to make the most of their time in the cage.

Unfortunately for Askren, however, he barely had time to even get his bearings before the fight was over:

The pair fought at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday (July 6) at UFC 239 and Masvidal started the fight with his hands pinned behind his back before sprinting across the cage and throwing his knees up to catch the former Olympic wrestler in the head.

Askren immediately fell to the floor and Masvidal threw in a couple more punches before referee Jason Herzog dove on top of the unconscious fighter to signal the end of the fight.

Incredibly, all that action took place in just five seconds; a UFC record. According to USA Today the former record for a KO was six seconds, set in 2006 by Duane Ludwig in a victory over Jonathan Goulet.

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Masvidal dropped to his knees and banged the floor next to his fallen opponent a couple of times, presumably to try and wake him up, before being restrained by security.

He seemed unsatisfied with the short-lived fight as he spoke after the KO, saying:

I really wanted to beat his ass for 14 minutes and 55 seconds but it didn’t happen, so back to business.

Whatever. I don’t have anything nice to say about Ben Askren so my mother said if you don’t then not to say anything at all.

In his post-fight speech the champion thanked God as well as his American Top Team coaches and teammates but it didn’t take long before he started taking shots at Askren again. On the lead up to the fight, the pair had engaged in a lot of trash talk.

Masvidal said:

He’s a bum. That dude was talking wild, man. I had to show him that there’s consequences sometimes. There’s some bad motherf***ers out there, you don’t want to wake them up.

You guys are welcome for ending that dude.

UFC President Dana White reportedly addressed Askren’s status at the post-event press conference, where he confirmed the fighter passed his post-fight medical tests.

The former Olympic wrestler later took to Twitter to share his thoughts on the fight, where he used three simple words to sum up what happened:

Well that sucked.

The fight marked the first career loss for Askren.

We’ll have to see if he gets chance to redeem himself during his next fight!

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Emily Brown

Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.