The biggest trade in MMA history is now complete. Ben Askren retired undefeated from ONE at 33, with a widely held belief that he might be the world’s best welterweight, but hadn’t proved it. UFC G.O.A.T. candidate Demetrious Johnson has been maintaining his dignity in a sport were poor sportsmanship puts asses in seats, and as a consequence didn’t move PPVs. Now Askren has a chance to find his true depth, and Johnson can shine globally, untarnished.

This is how it happened.

Demetrious Johnson on media conference call

At the end of the day, I felt that I’m pretty young in my career, and I wanted to try something different. I’ve always wanted to travel the world and compete, and actually grew up watching Asian mixed martial arts with PRIDE mostly. To be able to have the opportunity to travel over to Asia to compete was something I couldn’t pass up. … After my last fight, I was like, “You know what? Do you think this is something that could be possible?” He goes, “Anything’s possible man.”

It feels good, but this wasn’t done by just me. There’s multiple people involved in it. First Round Management, ONE Championship, Chatri, Matt Hume, the UFC, so it was a collective, people coming together and making something happen. And even Ben Askren. So I think it’s a great thing, I think if people want to be able to be traded and compete in different organizations I think that we should have that option on the table.

‘Mighty’ manager Malki Kawa on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show

I said, “OK, cool. Let me get to work on it.” … We approached Dana, who was not for it at all. He was actually against the idea. It didn’t look good at first. And then I just kept at it. I made a pitch to [UFC Chief Legal Officer and Executive Vice President] Hunter Campbell, who was really instrumental in getting this thing done with me. I just went to him and said, “Here’s the situation. Here’s the deal. … I just think this makes the most sense for everybody involved.” It took him about a week or two to wrap his head around it. And then from there, the wheels started turning in motion. We started realizing this was going to happen. It was one of those things where everything aligned, and I think it worked perfectly for everyone involved.

What was surprising to me … at first, there was pushback from both ONE FC and the UFC. ONE FC didn’t really like the idea of trading Ben. And I was kind of like, “All right, I’m a little confused here. You guys are going to get one of the best to ever do it for a guy that’s retired. Like, let’s make sure we get this right here.” … but once me and Hunter got into [agreement], and I was able to get ONE FC on it, it was easy after that.”

I’ve gotten guys released before. This one was a little bit different. The issue here was DJ, for a very long time, had a hard time drawing pay-per-view wise. And then when he lost to Cejudo, I think that kind of almost elevated his stock. Because I think people were interested in seeing what happens next, a rematch potentially, all this other stuff. Obviously, he was also hurt. So him having to sit out for a while, you know, you started hearing the talk about Cejudo vs. T.J. and all this other stuff. So we realized this was going to take a minute. And I think D.J. at that point said when talks started happening, that hey, there’s a potential for him to go somewhere else, that he could go somewhere else.

My pitch to Hunter was … very honest on the whole situation. And I took a risk by doing that, because it’s no secret Matt Hume is the VP over there, and he’s also DJ’s coach. I started working on a deal for DJ, when I started realizing the numbers for DJ, what they would be, you start telling Hunter, “Look, dude, let’s just be honest. This is never going to happen here. You’ve got a guy who’s in his 30s, he’s got kids, he just had another one. This is something that you’ve got to look at from that perspective, from the athlete’s perspective.” And I think Hunter saw that. And I think that, you know, the idea of trading wasn’t necessarily mine. It was the idea of what else could we do to make it happen. And Hunter came back with, “Well, if you can go get ONE FC to give us Ben, then we will do this.” So I was the one that went to ONE FC and said, “Hey, let’s make this happen.” And it was funny because ONE FC was kind of against it at first. And I won’t forget they were like, “You know, we’re going to have to sleep on it.” So I said, “Well, make sure you pop in Ben’s tape, and it’ll gave you a better night’s sleep.” And it was that comment, you know, I said it playing around with them. But in a sense, I don’t rep Ben. I was just trying to make this thing happen. It just started making a lot of sense. … I just did that trying to let them understand, “You guys got a guy that’s retired. And I’m giving you an active one of the greats. Like, are we serious? This is the best you’re going to get from the UFC.” It took them 24, 36 hours, and they came back and said, “OK, if this and this and this happens.” And that’s kind of how the whole thing went down. And then I was just in between both sides and finally got it done.

Ben Askren on MMAjunkie Radio

When [ONE] asked me, I thought they were crazy. They said, “Hey, would you be open to being traded?” “What do you mean?” “Yeah, we’ll trade you.” I’m like, “Yeah, OK, let’s go, let’s do it.” I thought that was kind of silly. That isn’t going to happen. Like anyone would have thought, that’s a very reasonable thought. And they called me back maybe a week, 10 days later and said, “Hey, you got traded.” I’m like, “What? Seriously? Are you guys messing with me right now?” They’re like, “No, seriously.” … I’m terrible at keeping secrets. If you actually go back and look through my Twitter timeline …

Time to put up or shut up

— Funky 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@Benaskren) September 24, 2018

Very ambiguous, obviously, to mean anything. But that was when it actually happened, and I had to keep a secret and obviously, everything had to be finalized from all parties, and there was a whole bunch of hoops and hurdles to jump.

They were looking for a win-win situation. This trade here is obviously – first of all, it’s historic. No one ever knew it could happen. No one ever thought it could happen. So, first of all, it’s historic. Second of all, every party got what they wanted. The UFC got a star, ONE Championship got Demetrious Johnson, the best flyweight of all time. I got to go where I wanted, he got to go where he wanted, and we’re all great.

Chatri Sityodtong on media conference call

DJ embodies true martial arts. Asia’s been the home of martial arts for 5000 years and it’s basically been a way of life for Asians, and honor, the respect, the humility, the integrity, the discipline, the compassion that you earn through thousands of hours of training. It’s how we live our lives out here in Asia and DJ not only is the best pound-for-pound king to ever do it, but I think he embodies everything authentic and everything beautiful about martial arts and so I think he’s going to transcend being just a martial arts star.

I think if you look at who’s transcended just being a martial arts star, whether it’s Bruce Lee, Donnie Yen, Jet Li, Jackie Chan, there’s countless people who have transcended martial arts and became true global superstars. I think DJ has the potential.

H/T Simon Samano for MMAjunkie and Alexander K Lee for MMA Fighting