It’s hard to believe that Ben Askren is returning for a wrestling match in RAF just barely one year removed from a near-death experience that ended with him receiving a double-lung transplant.
The one-time Olympian was hospitalized, and comatose for days, before doctors were finally able to save his life. He was barely recognizable when he first woke up and offered an update on his condition. That was June 2025 and now Askren sits just days away from facing Belal Muhammad in the RAF 11 co-main event.
“It really is [crazy],” Askren told MMA Fighting. “I’m almost to the point where it seems like a bad dream or something sometimes. I feel like I’m just me now. Obviously, I take medicine everyday, and there’s still some limitations that I can’t forget about, but I do find myself feeling more and more normal. At points it does just seem like a terrible dream.”
To see Askren now, he doesn’t look much different from his days competing in the UFC but obviously his body has undergone a dramatic transformation. He spent months in rehabilitation and there were times when he could barely catch his breath as he was trying to adjust to his new reality following an organ transplant.
But Askren never stopped pushing and he eventually returned to coaching at his Askren Wrestling Academy. That’s where he finally got back on the mats, but Askren says he wasn’t doing it with the intention of actually competing in a match again.
“It was probably something like I was coaching a private lesson and one of my kids was probably being a little too lippy or something — let me come whoop your ass for a second,” Askren said with a laugh. “Probably something like that would be what I would guess. I remember when RAF told me they were coming to Milwaukee, something said I should wrestle in that. As it got a little further, it was maybe late March or somewhere in there I would guess timewise, I had a private lesson group and it was odd [numbers] that day, someone couldn’t be there. So I think I had five kids or seven and they were going to do a match. I’m like eff it, I’ll see if I can do a six-minute match. It was against a high school kid, about 190 [pounds], and he’s pretty scrappy, but I knew I had the wisdom to get it done.
“So I wrestled him but my thought was funny because I don’t know if I can go six minutes. I might just fall over at four minutes or five minutes. So I wrestled an uber conservative style, but I won the match. I was like fine, I’m not very good right now but within the course of training over the next three months, I can get a lot better.”
Askren knows that his life is forever changed after having the double-lung transplant, but he’s made remarkable improvements over the past year. The fact that his doctors signed off on his upcoming wrestling match should prove that.
“Actually last week or two weeks ago, I had my year checkup and everything’s good,” Askren said. “I got reduced on a lot of medicines, which I can feel my body changing from that. I think 10 days ago or 11 days ago maybe. Everything’s headed in a really good direction. I’m really grateful for everything that’s happened in the last year.
“Some would say it was a terrible event, and I would say of course it was terrible, that’s how life does it sometimes. I think a lot of positive things have came out of it. You can’t control anything that’s in the past so I don’t need to worry about it anymore. I just need to try to live the best life that I can.”
His comeback is obviously a huge personal goal, but Askren is also hopeful that this experience can inspire others in a similar situation.
“Your life absolutely changes forever but just because it’s different, doesn’t mean it can’t be great still,” Askren said. “I’m a year out, and I’m going to continue to improve from here. I don’t think I’m anywhere near a final form. It’s like I was telling you, I’m riding the bike to failure. Every single week, I set a new record. Probably for the last 12 weeks, every single week I get better. I think judging how I was prior to the injury, I’ve probably still got quite a bit of improvement left, is what I would guess.
“But your life is different, but it can still be great. Honestly that’s one of big messages that I’ve had that’s really resonated with people is everyone’s life is going to have struggles and adversity. Life’s hard. I don’t know that god meant for life to be easy. I just don’t think that’s how he envisioned it. I don’t think that’s the most fulfilling. If you find a man without a challenge in his life, you’ll find a man who is wholly unfulfilled.”
As far as his matchup against Muhammad on Saturday, Askren is absolutely gunning for a win but in many ways he’s already victorious by just returning to wrestling after a double-lung transplant.
After the event was first announced, Muhammad confessed that he felt like he was a little bit of a “lose-lose” situation because winning means he beat somebody coming back from such a serious health issue, and if he falls, then he lost to somebody coming back from such a serious health issue.
But Askren takes a much different approach when looking at the stakes in this match, and he hopes Muhammad has a similar attidue in mind come Saturday.
“It’s just a wrestling match,” Askren said. “One of us is going to win, one of us is going to lose and the idea that certain people whether it’s wrestling or fighting, act like I’m a better person than you because I can beat you in fighting? That’s so incredibly stupid and so incredibly counterproductive. Then there’s so many people who live their lives in a manner that their pride won’t even let them try things because they’re afraid of what it may look like or what kind of failures it may bring to their life. I was already pretty good on that notion where I felt like I didn’t have too much pride, and I wasn’t doing too many things because of ego. Now it’s resonating even more with me.
“I need to do the things that I want to do in life and not worry about what the public says or the comments say or anything to that effect. Me and Belal are doing a wrestling match. One of us is going to win, one of us is going to lose. I still have great skills. Hey, if he beats me, he can say he beat an Olympian! I’m still an Olympian! Even though I had a double lung transplant, I’m still an Olympian.”
No matter the result at RAF 11, Askren makes it clear that this is his final wrestling match.
He couldn’t have ever predicted that he’d ever come back for one more match after his double-lung transplant but returning in his hometown on his birthday was almost too perfect. So Askren plans to face off with Muhammad and then he’ll hang up his wrestling shoes for good.
“I don’t want to do anymore matches. This is it for me,” Askren said. “I never really even had the idea. I did encourage RAF to come to Milwaukee because we do have a strong wrestling base here. I knew we would sell a bunch of tickets. So I said hey guys, Milwaukee’s great in the summer, come to Milwaukee. We’ll sell a bunch of tickets, we’ll probably be able to attract the Chicago crowd too, because they had a great show there last November or whenever it was.
“When they told me it was going to be on my birthday, something just said ‘Ben, get out there and wrestle.’ It’s a year after your transplant, it’s your birthday, it’s in your hometown, go do it.”
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