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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Ben Askren's return to the cage ended without his hand raised in victory for the first time in his career. However, he held onto his ONE Championship Welterweight Title, as his bout with Luis "Sapo" Santos ended in a no contest due to an eye poke in the first round at ONE Championship 26.
Santos actually had an early edge on Askren in the fight, reversing a few takedown attempts into throws of his own, but he didn't maintain positional control long. Then, as Askren came in for another takedown against the cage, his hand appeared to come close to Santos' face as he ducked in. Santos reacted as if he'd been poked, and after Askren completed his takedown the fight was halted.
The fight was ultimately stopped, and it was revealed afterward that Santos had suffered a corneal abrasion. Santos' wife, fellow MMA fighter and one time Strikeforce vet Carina Damm, accused Askren of being unprofessional after the fight.
"The doctors were talking to 'Sapo' in the cage and Askren was all over it, trying to push him back to the fight," Damm said in an interview with Guilherme Cruz at MMAFighting.com. "He wanted 'Sapo' to return injured so he would have an advantage over him. That was his only chance, in my opinion. Ben Askren is unprofessional and everybody saw that.
"'Sapo' is in the hospital right now. He hurt his eye pretty bad, scratched his cornea, and they are doing some exams now. He will need to use an eye patch, and will take some time to recover from this. I don't know if they are doing to book the rematch or even punishing Askren for this unprofessional move. We will see what happens next."
Askren had an altogether different take on the fight after it ended, saying Santos simply looked for a way out.
"This is embarrassing," Askren said in his post-fight interview (via MMAJunkie.com). "I knew that the strategy is he comes out early, and he looks for a way out. It's unfortunate his way out came this way. I know he's lived in America for five years and he understands, 'yes' or 'no.' Let's do it again in a week, two weeks or whenever.
"He's going to say, 'I kicked him, I threw him early,' and he was going to beat me. No. He wasn't. Look at my face. He didn't hurt me. … If he doesn't want to fight, find someone else. I didn't get to fight."
Full results from Friday's event in The Philippines are below:
- Ben Askren vs. Luis Santos declared no-contest (eye-poke) at 2:19 of the first round
- Mark Striegl def. Casey Suire via submission (rear-naked choke) at 3:48 of the first round
- Anatpong Bunrad def. Geje Eustaquio via split decision
- Eugene Toquero def Brianata Rosadhi via TKO at 3:41 of the first round
- Edward Kelly def. Jimmy Yabo via submission (rear-naked choke) at 4:05 of the first round
- Amir Khan def. Bashir Ahmad via TKO at 3:20 of the third round
- Xiaoyang Liu def. Nicholas Lee via KO at 1:59 of the first round
- Wang Ya Wei def. Sunoto Peringkat via TKO at 1:21 of the third round
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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