Ben Askren Returns to Competition a Year After Lung Transplant

On July 18, Ben Askren will compete in a freestyle wrestling match at UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena, a little more than a year after undergoing a double lung transplant. It will be his 42nd birthday, and he has said it will be his final competition.

Askren's wrestling credentials are extensive: two NCAA championships at Missouri, two Dan Hodge Trophies, a spot on the 2008 U.S. Olympic team, and later welterweight titles in Bellator and ONE Championship before a brief UFC run. He retired from MMA in 2019 and last competed in a 2021 boxing match against Jake Paul. Then, last spring, he got sick — a sudden case of severe pneumonia that landed him in the hospital and ended with a double lung transplant.

The month he lost

The illness came on quickly. In late May 2025, Askren, then 40, was hospitalized in Wisconsin with severe pneumonia. Within days he was sedated and on a ventilator, then on ECMO — a machine that oxygenates blood outside the body when the lungs can no longer do it, typically a last measure while doctors look for other options.

The option became a double lung transplant, one of the most invasive procedures in medicine. Surgeons open the chest, remove both failing lungs one at a time while machines sustain the patient, and attach donor lungs at the airways and blood vessels. The operation can take the better part of a day, and lungs are the most fragile of the transplantable organs, partly because they are continually exposed to the outside world through breathing. The procedure also requires lifelong immunosuppression — daily anti-rejection medication that leaves recipients permanently more vulnerable to infection. Recovery is typically measured in months, with much of the first year spent rebuilding basic strength and breathing capacity.

Askren was placed on the transplant list on June 24, 2025, and received his new lungs on June 28.

He remembers none of it. His memory stops on May 28 and resumes on July 2. During that stretch, his heart stopped four times, for about 20 seconds each time. He learned the details afterward from a journal his wife, Amy, kept throughout the hospitalization. "It's like a movie," he said. "It's ridiculous."

When he woke, he could not feed himself. He had lost roughly 50 pounds in 45 days and weighed 147 — his weight at age 15.

"My own funeral"

In his first video from the hospital, Askren said the part of the ordeal that affected him most was not the medical detail but the response to it. "It was almost like I got to be at my own funeral," he said, describing the support that came in from the wrestling and MMA communities while he was hospitalized.

In the months that followed, several old rivalries were set aside. Jake Paul, who knocked him out in his last public competition, offered to help cover medical bills that reportedly approached $2 million and were not fully covered by insurance. Jorge Masvidal — whose flying knee ended Askren's UFC unbeaten run in five seconds, the fastest knockout in the promotion's history, and who feuded with him for years afterward — reached out, traveled to Wisconsin, and had dinner with him.

"I learned last summer that life is too short to hold grudges," Askren said of the reconciliation.

The donor

The transplant was made possible by a donor whose identity has not been made public. "We are forever thankful to the donor and his family," Amy Askren wrote after the surgery. "Every new day he has is a gift."

More than 100,000 Americans are on the transplant waiting list at any given time, and roughly 13 people die each day waiting for an organ.

The return

The comeback happened in stages: first relearning basics like standing and walking, then, months later, a return to coaching regular practices at Askren Wrestling Academy, where his training partners include NCAA and world champions.

Askren was the first athlete signed by Real American Freestyle, the unscripted wrestling league, in May 2025 — before his illness. He was scheduled to compete at the promotion's debut event that August and instead spent the summer in the hospital. RAF kept him on as an ambassador, matchmaker, and commentator. When the promotion scheduled a show in Milwaukee — a city he had lobbied for — he noticed the date. "It was July 18th and it was my birthday," he said. "Something spoke to me."

His opponent is Belal Muhammad, a former UFC welterweight champion and onetime training partner, in a freestyle match at 190 pounds — the co-main event of RAF 11. "His story is gonna motivate the next generation," Muhammad said, "even people who think they can't come back from anything."

Him and his family

Amy Askren shared her reaction publicly. In a post on Instagram, she called the news surreal and said she was proud of him, adding: "Telling Ben not to wrestle would be telling a bird not to fly." She confirmed that his doctors have cleared him to compete, and acknowledged he "still has a ways to go" — but said he shows up and works hard every day.

Askren himself has been candid about where his body is. As recently as five or six months ago, he has said, he couldn't climb a flight of stairs without getting winded; his physical capacity, in his words, went to essentially zero, and he now trains daily to rebuild it. He chose Muhammad deliberately. Askren has acknowledged he can no longer compete with elite amateur wrestlers, but said he didn't want an easy opponent either. Muhammad — a former UFC champion whose game is built on wrestling, but who doesn't have a high-level amateur background — fit what he was looking for: a genuinely tough match at a level he can realistically meet.

One more

A return to formal public competition thirteen months after a double lung transplant is essentially without precedent. Askren has framed it in plain terms: a "second act," and part of his purpose now is showing people they can do hard things. He is clear that this is a one-time event. "I'm going to do it once, and I'm going to enjoy it," he said — then back to coaching, his family, and his work with RAF.

The match falls on his 42nd birthday, in his home state, in the sport he has been part of since he was six years old.

Amy, who spent last summer waiting through weeks of uncertainty at his bedside, has said she is proud of him and supports the decision. She is expected to be in attendance in Milwaukee on July 18.

RAF 11 takes place Saturday, July 18 at UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena, streaming on Fox Nation, with wrestling beginning at 7 p.m. CT. Askren vs. Muhammad is the co-main event beneath Arman Tsarukyan vs. Colby Covington.

How hyped are you for Askren's return? Rate your hype for every match on the RAF 11 card on Good Fights — then come back after the final whistle and rate how it delivered. Never miss a Good Fight.