Ben Askren is set to wrestle an active, former UFC champion almost a year after cheating death.
Not long ago, things looked grim for the former Bellator champion and two-time NCAA Division I wrestling champion, as he was hospitalized with a severe case of pneumonia. Askren went into the hospital in late May of 2025 and was in a coma and on a ventilator for well over a month. Askren ended up getting a double-lung transplant and lost 50 pounds throughout the process. He also revealed he died four times, with his heart stopping “for about 20 seconds.”
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Fast-forward a year, and Askren has not only made a good deal of recovery, but he also has a wrestling match booked against Belal Muhammad in the co-main event of RAF 11. The event will take place on Askren’s 42nd birthday – July 18 – in his hometown of Milwaukee, Wis.
“I’m going to wrestle,” Askren said on The Ariel Helwani Show. “I was the first signee for Real American Freestyle back in May 2025, prior to all my issues. I love wrestling. I love what they’re doing. I’ve been coaching for three months now, and when they told me, it was many months ago, when they told me that they were doing a show in Milwaukee – I asked them to come to Milwaukee because I thought they would knock it out of the park – (and) it was July 18th, and it’s my birthday, and something spoke to me and said I need to wrestle on that. So I’ve been doing my best every single day to train and stay in shape. It’s feeling really good. I’m in the wrestling room, and I’m wrestling with the guys, not super hard yet, but I’m doing things. I told them last week, ‘Hey, I want to wrestle,’ and they said, ‘If you want to wrestle, we support it.'”
Askren’s road to recovery is not yet complete despite having a match booked at RAF 11. He’s been slowly getting back to training, and he’s still needing to take precautions such as avoiding people who are sick and large groups, and wearing a mask.
Askren admits he does have some reservations about his physical performance, which is why he thinks Muhammad is the perfect opponent for him at this point in his life.
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“I wanted to pick someone who was really tough, but he doesn’t have super high-level wrestling credentials,” Askren explained. “That wasn’t his background; that’s not what he did. I know I couldn’t compete with the high-level wrestlers at this point in my life, but I think I could still compete against someone really good. I didn’t want to go to the other side and take someone who was too easy because that annoys me. Some of the wrestlers at RAF want easy matchups, and it’s annoying.”
Askren confirmed this return is a one-and-done for him. He’s not looking to continue competing beyond July 18. Askren’s main reason to return to the mats is to inspire others with his story.
“One thing that spoke to me when they said July 18 in Milwaukee was, I think of it like I lived the first life, and now I’m doing a second act because I don’t know if I totally should’ve made it,” Askren said. “But I think, what is my purpose moving forward, and I think part of my purpose is being able to inspire people to do hard things and show them that they could do it. You guys all watched me on my deathbed last year. You guys watched me go through something incredibly hard. I think the way I’ve been able to bounce back from it has been inspiring to many people, and I’m not going to stop doing that.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Ben Askren explains what drove wrestling comeback after nearly dying
