Ben Askren to make miraculous return to wrestling with RAF, year after near-fatal illness, double lung transplant
· Yahoo Sports
Against the odds, Ben Askren is returning to active competition. After a life-or-death health scare last year, the veteran wrestler and former MMA champion has recovered enough to return to the mats and make his Real American Freestyle (RAF) debut.
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Askren broke the news Monday on Uncrowned’s “The Ariel Helwani Show.” He’s set to compete in a wrestling match against former UFC welterweight champion Belal Muhammad at RAF 9 on July 18 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For Askren, the match will take place right outside his hometown and mark his first wrestling match in seven years.
“I was the first signee for Real American Freestyle back in May of 2025, prior to all of my issues, and I love wrestling, I love what they’re doing,” Askren told Uncrowned. “I’ve been back coaching for three months or so right now on regular practices. And when they told me … they were doing a show in Milwaukee — I’d asked them to come to Milwaukee because I knew we’ll knock it out of the park — but it was July 18 and it was my birthday, and I something spoke to me and said: ‘I need to wrestle on that.’
“So I’ve been doing my very best to train and to get into shape, and it’s going really good. And I’m the wrestling room, I’m wrestling with the guys, not super hard yet but I’m doing things. So I told them yesterday, ‘Hey, I want to wrestle.’ And they said, ‘OK, if you want to wrestle, we support it.”
Askren, 41, overcame a battle with what was described as “severe pneumonia” last year, which put him in a coma for 45 days. Askren said he essentially died multiple times and was forced to undergo a harrowing double-lung transplant. In Askren’s own words, he never expected life to be the same again. That makes a return to competition all the more stunning, considering how much the procedure altered his body and health in the early months after.
As for Muhammad, he lines up his own RAF debut a month after his upcoming bout against Gabriel Bonfim at UFC Vegas 118 on June 6.
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