Ben Askren nearly died. Then he wrestled again. Then Colby Covington called him “the dead guy.”
Askren, the former UFC welterweight and Olympic wrestler, returned to competition at Real American Fighting 11 last weekend in Milwaukee — months after undergoing a double-lung transplant. He faced Belal Muhammad, came up short, and retired. The comeback alone was remarkable. Covington, never one to let a storyline go unexploited, used the press conference to mock both men.
“Bro, you barely beat the dead guy!” Covington shouted at Muhammad during the RAF 11 presser. “This guy can only score on dead guys and gargoyles. That’s it. You’re a bum, bro. It will be the easiest match I get in RAF. I can’t believe they’re going to give me a free win like that. Easy money. No one’s beating me for this belt.”
Covington won the promotion’s crossover belt at RAF 11 by defeating Arman Tsarukyan. He is expected to headline RAF 12 against Muhammad in Cleveland.
But Covington didn’t stop at Askren. He also went after Muhammad’s wife during the same press conference — and that, more than the transplant jokes, is what drew Askren’s sharpest response.
“I try not to hold grudges, but Colby just rubs me the wrong way because he doesn’t say good things about people,” Askren told Ariel Helwani. “If you watched what he said at the press conference on Friday about Belal, and specifically about Belal’s wife, it was gross. It was just terrible human being stuff. We’re in show business, and I get the whole trash-talking thing, but don’t bring Belal’s wife into it. I think a lot of the things he does are just kind of gross. He can choose to do that, but I’m probably not going to interact with him because I just don’t see the point.”
There is a certain efficiency to Covington’s provocations. He identifies the most sensitive available target — a near-death experience, a spouse — and applies maximum pressure. The strategy has generated title fights, pay-per-view headlining slots, and years of relevance for a fighter whose win rate inside the Octagon has not always matched his promotional output. Whether the math still works at RAF, a promotion still establishing itself, is a separate question.
Askren, for his part, has nothing left to prove on any mat. A two-time NCAA champion at Missouri, a 2008 Olympian, and a Bellator and ONE Championship titleholder, he retired from MMA in 2019 and then nearly lost his life to a lung condition requiring transplant surgery. That he returned to competitive wrestling at all defies reasonable expectation. That he walked away afterward on his own terms is the clean ending few athletes get.
Covington will keep talking. Askren will not engage. The promotion will book the Cleveland card. The cycle continues.
Yahoo Sports — Not-dead Ben Askren reacts to Colby Covington clown show at RAF 11