"He's not a representation of our sport" - Jorge Masvidal remains critical of Ben Askren ahead of fight with Jake Paul

Jorge Masvidal believes that Ben Askren is not a representation of Mixed Martial Arts in the world of Boxing. Gamebred took shots at Askren for speaking negatively towards MMA in his past conferences and thinks the latter needed to do more than just wrestle during his career.

During an interview with ESPN's Ariel Helwani, Jorge Masvidal seemed quite determined about the fact that he doesn't believe Askren is a proper representative of MMA in the world of Boxing.

"He's not a representation of our sport, my beautiful sport. He used to diss the sport when you used to ask him in interviews like, 'Why don't you ever strike? Oh, I could wrestle these guys'. I love wrestling, I'm a huge wrestling fan but you have to show respect. You have to know this is MMA, you have to strike, you have to show jiu-jitsu, you have to do wrestling," said Masvidal.

Jorge Masvidal further questioned who gave Askren the right to represent MMA in the world of boxing, courtesy of his upcoming fight against Jake Paul.

The BMF Champion added that the only reason why Funky is fighting Paul on April 17th is that Masvidal has already embarrassed Askren so much. He continued by saying that now someone else is willing to do the same by knocking out the former ONE and Bellator Champion.

"So now this guy's supposed to represent what? Our community or something in Boxing? Hell no. Who the hell gave this guy approval? The only reason why he's doing that is because I embarrassed him so much and made him so famous for getting knocked out, somebody else wants to do the same thing to the guy. But I just wanna make this clear for anybody that thinks, he is not a representation of MMA in any way," said Jorge Masvidal.

“The guy can't throw a punch. The guy can't spell jab."@GamebredFighter tells @arielhelwani Ben Askren is not representing MMA in his boxing match against Jake Paul. pic.twitter.com/pqdSFG7sUU

— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) April 7, 2021

Jorge Masvidal will return to action at UFC 261

At the upcoming UFC 261 pay-per-view, Jorge Masvidal will fight Kamaru Usman for the UFC Welterweight title in a rematch between the pair.

Both men faced each other at UFC 251 after Gamebred replaced Gilbert Burns on short notice to face the Champion.

UFC 261 is scheduled for April 24 and will take place in Jacksonville. The PPV will also mark the return of the fans in attendance in the arenas.