Over the last several days, former members of the Roususport fight team have spoken out against head coach, Duke Roufus in the wake of investigative reports by the Milwaukee Sentinel-Journal following the March death of amateur kickboxer Dennis Munson, Jr. Among those to speak out are former UFC roster members Pat Barry and Eric Schafer and current WMMA star, Rose Namajunas.

On the other side of the coin, Eric Koch came to the defense of Roufus via the Underground forum, stating that the claims are ridiculous, and that there were incidents in the gym where Namajunas was "kicked off the mat for punching someone in the face after the bell."

Now, another Roufusport fighter, Ben Askren has also come to his trainer's defense in an interview with MMA Fighting's Luke Thomas:

"Duke's not following a blueprint," Asken notes. "When I came through the ranks in wrestling - in high school and college - those systems have been in place for 100 years and they're fairly standard training across the board for all the colleges. There are conferences every year where all the major coaches get together and they talk about the issues in wrestling, what's going to happen. There's a major governing body, USA Wrestling, which oversees a lot of the issues."

"The organization is there in wrestling to make a very well-balanced, organized system. In MMA, all of these coaches are doing their best. They're trying to throw stuff together. Duke didn't have a MMA coach because when he was coming up, MMA didn't exist. I've been to a lot of MMA gyms. I'm not going to say Duke's is perfectly organized, but it's definitely way more well run than the majority of places I've been."

"One of Duke's biggest things is - and it actually helps me from a fighting standpoint - he's very adamant on defense. Really, when he gets frustrated, they're not paying enough attention to their defense. He makes a point that we're fighters and this is our living. The more times we get hit, the shorter our career is. That is one thing Duke is adamant about."

"Duke's great to me," Askren notes. "I can definitely see the criticisms that he's harsh sometimes. I get that, but overall, I think the thing to take away is, Duke doesn't have ill will or is mean on purpose to people, which is what Rose and Eric were insinuating. He's definitely always been good and fair to me. If he does criticize people, I think lots of times he thinks that's what is going to help them and that's what he feels is best at the time.

"No one's perfect. No one's going to say the right thing to an athlete 100 percent of the time. He tries to say what's in the best interest of the athlete as many times as possible."

As always, Bloody Elbow will keep our readers updated on this story as more information becomes available.