Demian Maia vs. Ben Askren: Grappler's Paradise?
Photo by Yong Teck Lim/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC
The October 26th match-up between grappling world champion Demian Maia and folkstyle phenom and Olympian Ben Askren holds the potential to be one of the most intriguing ground battles in UFC history. There are many questions surrounding this bout - will they go to the ground at all, can Askren take down Maia, can Maia take down Askren, can either of them work productively off their backs against the other?
Here to break down the upcoming tilt between modern MMA’s BJJ torchbearer and the folkstyle savant are wrestling and MMA analyst Ed Gallo, and BJJ aficionado Tommy Elliott.
In the following days, both Tom and Ed will be publishing individual articles on each of the combatants. Tom will be taking a deep look at Demian Maia’s fights with wrestlers, while Ed plans to assess the strengths and weaknesses of Askren’s game from the past few years.
Both analysts have read the work of the other already, so some of this discussion is informed by that material. You’ll just have to wait to see it for yourself!
Maia vs. Askren: A Brief Discussion
TE: Good morning Ed. So Demian Maia and Ben Askren are going to fight on October 26th in a contest that is likely to disappoint casual fans but seems tailor made to provide analysis fodder for grappling heads like us. I’ve seen a lot of takes out there from Maia boxing Funky up to Ben holding Maia down for five rounds of punishment. My own opinion is somewhere in between, but I’m really curious to know how you’re thinking about the match-up.
EG: Well first of all, Maia would box up Askren, if the fight was contested on the feet.
TE: I don’t think anyone will argue that Maia isn’t a far better striker than Askren. If this was a kickboxing match, Ben would have no chance. But personally, I expect it’ll turn into a grappling contest pretty quickly. Maia has good striking by MMA-grappler standards, but it’s mostly designed to deal with people who don’t want to engage with his grappling. He might be able to angle off and frame Askren away while peppering him with jabs, but I’ve never seen him do it. More likely I think is that Maia *wants* to grapple with Askren, just on his own terms. Who do you think shoots a takedown first?
EG: Askren shoots first, it’s been years since we’ve seen him do anything but shoot almost immediately when the fight begins. As you pointed out to me privately, Demian Maia has attempted to take basically every fight he’s ever been in to the ground. A lot of my concerns for Maia are about if he’s going to straight up deny the attempts of Askren and keep the grappling situations on his terms, or just work with what Askren gives him and look to counter or scramble. Ultimately I feel that Maia can probably take Askren down himself, and would prefer he have that command of exchanges rather than reacting to Askren.
TE: It’ll be really interesting to see what happens when Askren does make contact. His initial shots are often extremely sloppy, if you can even call them ‘shots’. He often just bends at the waist, as you’ll point out in your article. However, he chain wrestles so well that it doesn’t matter against most guys. Maia is probably unique among BJJ fighters in that the rare times people shoot in on him he doesn’t play a traditional jiu jitsu style front headlock game looking for subs. Rather, he wrestles guys and tries to go behind or reshoot. That’s what he did against Jake Shields, the only guy in recent memory to actively try and grapple with him. If Maia is able to stuff Askren’s initial shot and get good position (he looks for underhooks coming back to the feet most of the time) I do think he can take him down from the body lock. If Maia does go down however I’m not sure what happens. Askren has very strong top control and while Maia has a nice half guard game coming up on singles, he has also shown a tendency to be overly defensive against strong top players. Again the Shields fight is the only real reference point for this, but he was pretty passive and defensive on bottom in that one.
EG: Let’s talk about the possibility of Askren fighting off his back. Askren doesn’t really have much in the way of defensive wrestling these days, he was ragdolled several times in ONE by guys like Luis Santos and Bakhtiyar Abbasov. Lest we forget Robbie Lawler hit him with the F5. It strikes me that Askren is getting taken down because he has no concern for putting himself out of stance if it means getting a bite on a limb. It shouldn’t surprise anyone if he ends up on his back without much of a struggle. If so, more than likely, he’s going to try to get an underhook, post with his elbow and get his hips facing down, either working for a single from there or scrambling out of front headlock. We’ve seen Maia work his way to single from underhooks in half guard many times, what’s his response when Askren does the same? Most of the time Askren is fighting to get on top, it’s because he put himself out of position with his takedown attempt, and his opponent is eager to separate. Have you seen similar situations in the Shields fight?
TE: If Askren ends up on his back, I don’t think he gets back up until the round ends. The most likely scenario is not that Askren comes up on a single, it’s that he goes to his knees and gets his back taken. Now, Askren is a competent submission grappler, but is he going to shuck Maia off his back or even defend the RNC? Shields was able to (and Maia lost position off of it), Masvidal was too, but I’d put both those guys’ grappling abilities over Askren’s. If Askren does try to play BJJ on bottom I think he gets shut down quickly. Maia’s top pressure and passing are top notch. If Maia does get on top with a few minutes left in the round Ben’s going to have a very bad time. But speaking of Askren being on the defensive, how do you think his scrambling skills match up with Maia’s BJJ? Usually when Maia’s TD have been shut down it’s been against wrestlers with strong hips and great sprawls. He lost the fights against Woodley, Usman, and Covington at least in part because he couldn’t get a TD on any of them (he was around 0-15 in each of those fights, none of those opponents even attempted a TD). With Askren I think it’s more likely he gets in on the hips, but what happens when Ben starts funking? Is that even in his repertoire at this late stage of his career?
EG: I have to be careful not to undersell Askren physically. On one hand, he doesn’t pass the eye test and I certainly wouldn’t call him athletic by the standards of elite MMA. But the man is strong and he has grip strength at the very least. You could see when he tied up with Lawler, he’s not frail, despite appearances. While he is still a talented wrestler, he’s regressed, and even in his prime he was nothing like Woodley, Usman or Covington. He’s nothing like them physically, technically, or strategically.
On the topic of scrambling, Askren’s scrambling worked so well in college partially because he navigated dangerous folkstyle situations (rolling across his back) that other elite wrestlers weren’t willing to play with. It’s a pretty folk-specific skill, his style of scrambling. I think he’s adjusted for some of the possibilities of MMA and jiu jitsu, but it’s not as much of a curveball to guys like Maia as it was for Jake Herbert. I doubt Askren tries to funk on Maia. I’m certain he can still do it, as he’s a very active coach at the Askren Wrestling Academy and is teaching that style among other things to his wrestlers. However, I doubt he’d want to put himself on his back, even temporarily, against Maia, assuming he recognizes that’s the absolute worst place for him to be in this fight. If he does go for it, funking holds a lot of similarity to the leg entanglement game of modern jiu jitsu. I’m sure Maia is well-schooled in shutting that game down, and he’ll find the positions familiar if Askren introduces that part of his skill-set.
TE: I do hope we get to see some scrambles. If those situations do occur they could be some of the best we’ve seen since the likes of Mighty Mouse vs. Joseph Benavidez.
All right, prediction time: how do you see this going down? Personally, I think it’s close to a 50/50 fight and one that will be contested almost solely in wrestling and grappling. Maia will be perhaps the best wrestler Askren has faced, he won’t be easy to get down and he’s very dangerous in his own right, recountering on shots and from the clinch. If Maia is able to get on top and especially if he’s able to get the back I’d say he has a strong chance of finishing Funky. However, if Askren can get him down and get on top consistently, it’s going to be a long night for Maia. He’s shown some passivity off his back, most notably against Jake Shields, and he has a tendency to gas in the later rounds of five round fights (being in his 40s doesn’t help). Being a BJJ guy I’m a huge Demain Maia fan so I’ll go with Maia by RNC in the 2nd or 3rd, but it’s not a pick I can make with much conviction. Thoughts?
EG: I really have no faith in Ben Askren to beat good welterweights in general, I can’t see myself picking him to beat one who is almost definitely a better grappler than him, and in some ways more effective as a wrestler in MMA. If this fight really is pure grappling as you have suggested, I’d still pick Maia. The exchanges will most likely start off Askren’s initiative, and whether Maia chooses to defend, strike longer and then opt for his own takedowns, or just counters the shot and begins grappling right away, he’s going to be fine.
The question mark of Maia’s body eventually deteriorating is always there, but it’s something I can’t see being a significant factor against another old man, especially one who isn’t any sort of physical threat compared to the big, strong wrestlers Maia has been faced with as of late.
One more thing.
When Askren is having a hard time getting the grappling or wrestling situations he wants, he does strike. I’ll highlight this in my article using the Luis Santos fight. Askren understands that his entries would be better if he was throwing strikes, and when all else fails with his traditional approach, he attempts to give some different looks by striking both from range and in the clinch.
And of course, it’s awful.
I’m not sleeping on Maia as a hitter. He’s not pillow-fisted, as some have suggested. At the very least, he had Mark Munoz badly rocked. And while Tom, you have certainly convinced me that this fight will be mostly a grappling match, I have the weirdest hunch that Maia is going to hurt him with strikes. Askren’s chin has been granite for his entire career, but it can’t possibly be the same only a few short months after he was horribly concussed by Jorge Masvidal. I’m picking Maia by Round 2 TKO.