Ben Askren Announces His Return To Combat Sports

Former Bellator and ONE Championship titleholder Ben Askren has announced he will compete at RAF 11 on July 18 in Milwaukee, less than a year after undergoing a double lung transplant, taking on former UFC welterweight champion Belal Muhammad on the same card as Colby Covington vs. Arman Tsarukyan.

Askren contracted a severe case of pneumonia that left him in a coma for 45 days. His weight dropped to roughly 145 pounds during his hospitalization — approximately 60 pounds below his standard walk-around weight during his fighting career. He subsequently underwent a double lung transplant before being released from hospital to continue his recovery at his Wisconsin home. Askren explained what drove him to return to competition

“Something spoke to me and said, ‘I need to wrestle on that.’ So, I’ve been doing my very best every single day to train and to get in shape and it’s feeling really good. I’m in the wrestling room. I’m wrestling with the guys. Not super hard yet, but I’m doing things. So, I told them last week, ‘Hey, I want to wrestle.’ They said, ‘Ok, if you want to wrestle we support it,” Askren said