Daniel Cormier On Doubting Ben Askren's BJJ Retirement Match
Even the people who know a grappler best can get it wrong. That's the story buried inside Daniel Cormier's admission this week that he tried to talk his friend Ben Askren out of a retirement…
Even the people who know a grappler best can get it wrong. That's the story buried inside Daniel Cormier's admission this week that he tried to talk his friend Ben Askren out of a retirement wrestling match — and then watched Askren prove him completely wrong. For anyone who trains BJJ or wrestling and has ever doubted what an aging, banged-up body can still do on the mat, it's worth paying attention to.
A friend who didn't believe
Cormier didn't hide his skepticism. Speaking with Askren after the match, he admitted he was one of the people who tried to put a limit on him the moment Askren shared his plans. "Sadly, I was one of those people that tried to put a limit on you," Cormier said, as BJJEE reported. Askren, for his part, wasn't swayed. "Daniel tried talking me out of it, but you know, that wasn't going to go down like that," he told Cormier.
What made the doubt understandable — and what made the eventual performance so remarkable — is what Askren had been hiding. Having undergone a double lung transplant, he'd kept the true extent of his physical limitations private from almost everyone, Cormier included. Askren admitted he didn't even know if he could wrestle hard for a full six minutes.
The match itself
Against Belal Muhammad, Askren leaned on craft over conditioning. He worked hand fighting to control distance, baited sloppy shots, and picked his moments — catching a whizzer on the edge when Muhammad pushed too hard, and setting up a double leg when Muhammad snapped down too aggressively. He had a gut wrench in his back pocket if the action hit the mat, though the opening never came. Watch the moment on YouTube to see the strategy play out in real time. By the third round, his tank was empty and Muhammad's pressure finally caught up — but the wrestling IQ had already made its point.
It's the kind of BJJ and wrestling storyline that resonates with anyone who's had to grapple smarter instead of harder: technique and timing buying time that raw output no longer can.
Why doubt shows up even among grapplers
There's something honest in Cormier admitting he doubted his friend — because doubt like that isn't rare in combat sports, it's the default response to anyone taking on a physical challenge they seem unequipped for on paper. Age, surgery, and a compromised set of lungs are about as unequivocal a set of red flags as exist in grappling. Cormier's instinct to protect his friend from a bad outcome was reasonable. It just happened to be wrong.
That's a familiar shape for anyone who's spent real time on a BJJ mat. Training partners, coaches, even training partners who love you, will sometimes tell you a comeback isn't realistic, that an injury has taken too much, that a certain body at a certain age can't compete with what it used to. Sometimes they're right. Sometimes, like Cormier, they're proven wrong by someone who understood their own capacity better than anyone watching from outside.
What this means for the rest of us
Most people training Jiu Jitsu or wrestling aren't stepping into anything resembling a retirement spectacle match. But the underlying lesson scales down easily. Every grappler who's returned to the mat after surgery, after a long layoff, or well past the age when their body cooperated easily has faced some version of the same doubt — from others, and often from themselves.
Askren's approach offers a useful blueprint beyond the emotional beat. He didn't try to out-athlete a younger, healthier opponent. He controlled distance, worked the tie-up, and waited for mistakes rather than forcing exchanges his body couldn't sustain. That's not just smart at 41 with one functioning set of lungs — it's smart Jiu Jitsu and smart wrestling at any age. Efficient grapplers, the ones who last, learn to substitute craft for gas tank long before their bodies force the issue.
Cormier's closing words to Askren captured it best: that only certain people earn the right to walk away on their own terms, shoes left on the mat, in front of people who watched them do it. Most of us won't get a moment that dramatic. But the reminder underneath it applies every time someone doubts what's left in your tank — sometimes the only way to know is to find out for yourself. See you on the mats.
Original report via BJJEE.