Ben Askren announces professional fight with UFC star one year after double lung transplant

Ben Askren has announced he's got a professional fight in the diary a year on from being hospitalised with severe pneumonia and receiving a life-saving double lung transplant.

The UFC fighter was last year hospitalised with the severe health condition as he explained he had been 'feeling strong' shortly before it happened.

"Right before I had to go to the hospital I was feeling strong, I was able to curl 45 pounds. I was out doing hill sprints," he'd explained of his condition before being hospitalised on 28 May last year.

A month later he was getting his double lung transplant and then regained consciousness a few days later, with him saying he couldn't really remember anything from the chunk of 2025 between 28 May to 2 July.

However, since then he's been on the road to recovery and told The Ariel Helwani Show he would be wrestling Belal Muhammad on 18 July, the day he turns 42.

"I'm gonna wrestle, what do you think about that?" He asked the disbelieving host.

"It was July 18, and it was my birthday, I thought something spoke to me and said 'I need to wrestle on that'. Doing my very best every single day to train, get into shape and it's feeling really good wrestling with the guys.

"Not super hard yet, but I'm doing things, so I told them yesterday 'hey I want to wrestle'."

It's a major turnaround from where he was after his life-saving surgery and the aftermath where the fighter admitted he was unable to stand or feed himself, but he's since talked to his doctor about returning to doing what he loves, which is fighting.

Despite his willingness to fight he went on to say this was going to be a one and done deal.

Askren said he plans to 'do it once' and enjoy himself but afterwards he plans to get into coaching wrestling and spend more time with his family.

He also wanted to help grow the Real American Freestyle (RAF) wrestling brand.

Ben reassured Ariel that even with his major health scare he's still got the 'wrestling knowledge and wrestling acumen' to compete, but his 'physical capacity pretty much went to zero'.

He described how just a few months ago he could hardly climb a flight of stairs without a struggle, but had been training on a daily basis to make his comeback.

As for his opponent, he said he wanted Belal Muhammad as the 37-year-old UFC fighter is 'tough' but 'doesn't have super high-level wrestling credentials'.

Askren says he doesn't think he can compete with 'high-level wrestlers' but he also doesn't want an easy opponent, and he thinks Muhammad fits the bill.