![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/49806_9575966_updates.jpg\")
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This collage of photos shows former American mixed martial artist Daniel Cormier (right) and Ben Askren. \u2014 Reuters\/Instagram<\/p>\n
Former Olympic wrestler Ben Askren has backed Daniel Cormier\u2019s criticism of UFC takedown scoring, saying \u201cDC is 100% correct\u201d.<\/p>\n
Many wrestling specialists, including legend Khabib Nurmagomedov, who is retired now, and Merab Dvalishvili, are brilliant at takedowns, and both have recorded double-digit takedowns in a single fight. <\/p>\n
Furthermore, Dvalishvili has 117 takedowns in his UFC career so far.<\/p>\n
Cormier said that the high number of takedowns in the promotion is the result of UFC’s weak system. During a podcast with Chael Sonnen, \u2018DC\u2019 argued that many of the supposed takedowns are mat returns.<\/p>\n
“Hey, the MMA takedown is a problem. The way that they score MMA takedowns is the problem, Chael. A takedown should be when you go to the mat. A takedown should not be when you get back up and the guy picks you up and just puts you back down,\u201d Cormier said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe never lost control… [They should] let us tell them what a takedown is, and then those numbers won’t seem so big. Merab didn’t get 20 takedowns, Merab probably got five or six take downs, and he got 14 mat returns.”<\/p>\n
A mat return occurs when a bottom fighter gets up after being taken down, but fails in an attempt to break their opponent’s control, only to be taken down again. <\/p>\n
Ben Askren posted on X backing Daniel Cormier’s criticism, saying ‘DC’ is correct. <\/p>\n
“They score a mat return as a takedown, the bottom person needs to completely clear control before another TD should be able to be established! ‘DC’ is 100% correct,” Askren said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This collage of photos shows former American mixed martial artist Daniel Cormier (right) and Ben Askren. \u2014 Reuters\/Instagram…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[24698,64,63,42485,789,797,21676,786,15614,15058,25363,785,85,787],"class_list":["post-225559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-askren","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ben-askren","tag-cormier","tag-daniel-cormier","tag-dvalishvili","tag-fighting","tag-khabib","tag-khabib-nurmagomedov","tag-merab-dvalishvili","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}