Veteran welterweight fighter Ben Askren believes that Dustin Poirier definitely has a good chance of beating Conor McGregor in their trilogy fight. 'Funky' admitted that McGregor's fame and money have prevented him from training like a madman and this could be the reason why he lost at UFC 257.
During a recent interview with Helen Yee, Ben Askren claimed that there have been other athletes, like the Irishman, who have suffered losses because of the same season.
"Conor McGregor's gotten to the point, he doesn't want to admit this and his fans don't want to admit this, but it's happened not only to him but with many other athletes. When they make the amount of money he made and when they get the amount of fame he's had, it's fu**ing hard to go train like a madman," said Askren.
Askren also added that it was natural for athletes to lose the fire to train once they reached a certain level. The former Bellator welterweight champion even revealed that he doesn't have the same fire for training now that he had in the early stages of his career.
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"I mean that's something that we do. Even me being older now, like I can be very disciplined with my training. But I don't have that same fire I had when I was 18, 19, 20, 21, 22," revealed Askren.
"I'm relatively well off. But if you have a hundred million dollars or whatever he has in the bank and then you see him on these private yachts everywhere. It's like, man it's gotta be hard for him to want to train hard and that's how we saw him in the Dustin fight," noted Askren.
Conor McGregor suffered his first-ever career TKO loss after 'The DIamond', surprisingly, put him away in the second round at UFC 257. McGregor is expected to face Dustin Poirier for the third time this July, in what promises to be a huge trilogy fight between the two fighters.
Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier are currently tied at 1-1 and the winner of the upcoming fight is almost guaranteed a shot at the UFC lightweight title.