On his 41st birthday, Ben Askren begged the nurses at Froedtert Hospital to let him go home. It wasn’t happening. He couldn’t stand under his own power, couldn’t feed himself, couldn’t use the restroom without help. He was two and a half weeks removed from a double lung transplant, and lucky to be alive at all.
Twelve months later, everything is different. Askren was scheduled to wrestle Belal Muhammad on July 18 — his 42nd birthday — in the co-main event of Real American Freestyle 11 at the UWM Panther Arena in Milwaukee. He called it his final match.
“My perception on mortality and life has been changed significantly in the last year,” Askren said July 17. “And I’m just like, I can go wrestle. I know there’s some of these guys’ lives, and they’re worried about winning and losing tomorrow. I get to wrestle. That’s it for me. I am so happy.”
What had been a calling is now a blessing. That’s not locker-room wallpaper philosophy. This is a man who spent weeks in a coma, woke up on July 2, 2025, and spent the rest of the summer relearning how to walk 100 feet around his own staircase railing.
Askren entered Froedtert on May 28, 2025, with pneumonia, at the insistence of his wife, Amy. He didn’t respond to treatment. Amy told fans on June 30 that he’d received the transplant. He woke two days later. The early days were fuzzy, he said, but one memory stuck: badgering doctors about going home for his birthday. Froedtert was 15 miles from his house. He promised he’d come right back.
He actually did get released early — chest tube and drainage bag in tow. Infection set in within days and sent him back to the hospital until mid-August. He ditched the walker around September 1. At that point, wrestling was the furthest thing from his mind.
“It was like, hey, I want to be able to make my own food,” Askren said. “I don’t want to be such a burden on my wife, because we have three small kids. I was harping on them to be able to take care of themselves because I literally couldn’t get out of the couch to go make my own food.”
He was back in the gym before the holidays but said he didn’t seriously consider competing again until RAF CEO Chad Bronstein and chief operating officer Izzy Martinez floated the Milwaukee date. “Something spoke to me and said, hey, you should be out there and wrestle,” Askren said.
RAF, a fledgling professional freestyle league co-founded by Bronstein and the late Hulk Hogan, launched shortly before Askren fell ill. The July 18 card sold over 7,000 tickets — the largest crowd in the promotion’s history, Bronstein said. The headliners were Colby Covington and Arman Tsarukyan, with considerable crossover between RAF and UFC rosters. The Milwaukee card also featured three Wisconsin-connected wrestlers: Keegan O’Toole, a four-time WIAA champion at Arrowhead and two-time NCAA champion at Missouri who trains under Askren; Mizzou’s Aeoden Sinclair of Milton; and University of Wisconsin associate head coach Tony Cassioppi.
Muhammad, a Chicagoan who trained with Askren at Roufusport in Milwaukee, said he was honored to be part of the story — even if it meant getting booed in Askren’s backyard.
“I’m sure a million doctors, a million people are telling him not to do it, but this is what he loved,” Muhammad said. “He’s built different. Wrestlers are built different. Fighters are built different.”
Askren hasn’t heard whether the family of his lung donor wants to make contact. Organ recipients and donor families can be connected if both sides desire. Regardless, he knows a stranger’s death gave him his life back.
“I would hope that their family knows that I’m making the best out of it and that they can take some solace in that,” Askren said, his voice quivering, “as much solace as you could take in the passing of someone who’s that close to you.”
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