Ben Askren says it’s down to two fighters for UFC debut opponent

"It's probably Robbie Lawler."

Ben Askren has narrowed down his list of potential opponents to two and has named former welterweight champion Robbie Lawler as the most likely candidate to share the Octagon with him in his UFC debut. Askren's switch to the UFC was confirmed this weekend after a historic trade deal which saw Demetrious Johnson move to ONE Championship. Askren has called out plenty of the world's top 170lbers in the days since and even drafted up a "death list" of targets. https://twitter.com/Benaskren/status/1058776811000225794 The undefeated American was in attendance for UFC 230 on Saturday night and revealed how he will likely make his first walk to the Octagon early next year. Askren also ruled out several fighters for various reasons before revealing the likeliest outcome.

"If I was the boss, I’d go Georges [St-Pierre], Khabib [Nurmagomedov] and then we’ll see from there, right?" Askren explained to Megan Olivi. "If Tyron wasn’t going to beat up Colby [Covington], then I’m picking him first.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy02HMO3hMc

"So now we’ve got three guys off my board and so we talk about who’s really available at the welterweight division who is highly ranked, we have three people. We have [Darren] Till, we have [Robbie] Lawler, and we have [Stephen] Thompson.

"Till heard I was coming to the welterweight division, he started eating and said ‘I’m moving to middleweight.’ He’s done, he’s done with welterweight. He heard I was coming and was like ‘Nah, I don’t want any of that.’ So we have two left. There’s only two people left.

"There’s Stephen Thompson and karate doesn’t work on me so he’s out. So who knows? It’s probably Robbie Lawler. But we’re not really sure, we’re down to two. Thompson or Lawler. We’ll find out."