(Always the craftiest of the Cabbage Patch Kids, “Funky” would wait until nap time to pounce upon his enemies.) 

Although Ben Askren may be the king of Bellator’s welterweight division for the time being, he certainly isn’t earning any new fans inside or outside of the cage, and in fact is likely losing them in droves. On the heels of yet another tepid, albeit title-retaining performance against Douglas Lima at Bellator 64, Askren returned to his day job as the most successful Serta mattress salesman in the world and decided to start shit-stirring with UFC President Dana White.

It started when DW stated at the UFC on FUEL post-fight press conference that it would be “impossible” to administer random drug tests to the over three hundred members of the UFC’s current roster. The general public’s initial response to the notion was that of skepticism. While it would be incredibly difficult to perform random drug tests on fighters based all over the planet, it would not be impossible, and would help avoid situations like the Alistair Overeem/UFC 146 calamity that the UFC currently finds themselves facing.

Apparently not impressed with White’s view on the matter, Askren took to Twitter and let his feelings be known:

@Benaskren
The USOC random tests Olympic athletes in all sports. Dana saying testing his fighters would be impossible is a bold faced lie.

Who knew that the most significant blow Askren ever threw would be to that of his own career?

An artist’s rendering of what Askren’s ground and pound might look like (Photo: Sherdog.com)

I’m not going to say that this was the most boring Bellator card in recent memory, but I will tell you that my DVR got tired of recording it and gave up before the Welterweight title fight had even begun. One of the risks of live televised fights is that they’ll go over the allotted time frame, particularly during a decision-laden event like Bellator 64. For those fans who don’t appreciate the nuances of champion Ben Askren’s suffocating ground game, having the evening’s finale blotted from your television may have been a blessing in disguise.

This season’s Bantamweight tournament kicked off with a quarterfinal pairing of undefeated twenty year old Rodrigo Lima and the seasoned Hiroshi Nakamura. Lima found himself on his back throughout the fight, but took no rest on the canvas as he tirelessly worked for every submission in the book. Nakamura—whose 87% win-by-decision record could compete with any of the UFC’s top grinders—kept all four limbs out of serious danger and stifled Lima’s ground game long enough to launch some ground and pound in the third frame. His takedowns and top control, coupled with a point awarded for absorbing a pair of unintentional knees to the nuts, were enough to bring home the unanimous 29-27 decision.

(Somehow, we don’t think Ben will be smiling after this fight.)

Bellator Fighting Championships announced today that the previously unannounced April 6 event we broke the news about last week will feature a main event scrap between Bellator welterweight champion Ben Askren and season 5 tournament winner Douglas Lima.

As we mentioned, the event, officially named as Bellator 64, will take place at Caesar’s Windsor.