Long-time rivals turned friends Jorge Masvidal and Ben Askren discussed the legendary flying knee that Masvidal landed on Askren at UFC 239.
It took Masvidal just five seconds to land a flush flying knee on Askren’s chin, which immediately put his lights out.
To this day, Masvidal’s five-second knockout remains the fastest in UFC history.
Although the two men once hated each other, after Askren suffered a life-threaning illness last year, Masvidal reached out to mend fences.
The two men are now friends, and so they can look back on their rivalry and fight with a newfound respect for it.
Jorge Masvidal & Ben Askren Talk Viral Flying Knee KO
Speaking on Full Send MMA, Masvidal and Askren sat down and discussed the legendary flying knee that turned Masvidal into a fully-fledged UFC superstar.
Askren began by sharing his thoughts on the stoppage, admitting that he never saw it coming.
“No one threw a flying knee prior to you the way you did it. If you think about this, I was never worried about a flying knee because generally it’s when you’re a little tighter and you come almost straight up at them. You did more of a jumping trajectory and so I think, in my own head, is I completely misjudge your trajectory because I’d never, ever seen anyone do it like that before. Maybe I’m wrong, but I can’t think of someone prior to you who did that running trajectory,” Askren said (via MMAFighting.com).
“I couldn’t predict it. I didn’t know where it was coming from and then your brain builds these prediction patterns and I probably never hit the flying knee in my life before that and you weren’t coming from straight up, you were coming from an angle, and so my brain obviously misread it and then you’re done.”
Jorge Masvidal Shares Perspective on Viral KO
Of course, Masvidal had a different take on the flying knee, and he shared his thoughts on the brutal knockout that made him millions.
“What helped me is that there’s few guys like you. With strikers, I have kind of more of a photographic memory for striking, for a lot of things. Even just doing it, your coach will be like, ‘One, two, three’ and he shows it and I’m like, OK, I know how to do it. For wrestling, I’ve got to ask questions, I’ve got to feel it. Same thing with the tapes. I would watch all your fights,” Masvidal said.
So I just noticed in a lot of your fights, if all of a sudden you were in a range that you didn’t like, you would shoot or you would find a way to clinch. Whether you’d get to two-on-one or you’ve got to underhook or you got into a single leg. So I was like, how about if I could do that? I could just all of a sudden change the speed on him, the closing, and when he goes for the wrestling, I’m prepared for it because the last thing I want to do is defend anything from you guys. I don’t want to be in a single leg, defending that, because you’ve been in that position 300,000 times. So even though I might have you sprawled out on your belly and I’m like, I’m doing good, I know it’s bad.”
Jorge Masvidal & Ben Askren Discuss Legendary Flying Knee KO