{"id":709025,"date":"2026-06-01T21:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T21:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/709025\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T21:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T21:23:08","slug":"ben-askren-returns-to-wrestling-against-belal-muhammad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/709025\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Askren Returns To Wrestling Against Belal Muhammad"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighter and two-time NCAA Division I national champion Ben Askren is returning to the wrestling mats, and he\u2019s taking on former UFC Welterweight champion Belal Muhammad at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/latest-news\/447451\/its-on-arman-tsarukyan-vs-colby-covington-finally-set-for-raf-11\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">RAF 11<\/a> on Sat., July 18, 2026, inside UWM Panther Arena in Askren\u2019s home state of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Askren announced his return to wrestling today on Ariel Helwani\u2019s show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">During the same interview in which he announced the matchup, Askren revealed that this will be a one-off appearance for RAF.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cI\u2019m not wrestling again. I\u2019m gonna do it once, and I\u2019m gonna enjoy it,\u201d Askren said. \u201cThen I\u2019m gonna coach wrestling, enjoy my family, and help RAF grow&#8230;I never really imagined it would work this quickly. Even my best-case scenario wasn\u2019t as good as how it\u2019s going.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">It is an absolute miracle that Askren is able to compete again after the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/2025\/6\/7\/24445166\/unresponsive-ben-askren-hospitalized-critical-condition-mma-community-reacts-shocking-news-ufc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">incredible health scare<\/a> he suffered last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Now, he\u2019s returning to competition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Askren will be taking on Muhammad, who competes this weekend at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-fight-cards\/434947\/ufc-vegas-118-fight-card-start-time-date-location-belal-vs-bonfim\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UFC Vegas 118<\/a>. Muhammad is currently 0-1 in RAF, losing his promotional debut to former two-time NCAA Division I national champion David Carr.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">For the latest wrestling-related news and notes click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ncaa-wrestling-news-and-results\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighter and two-time NCAA Division I national champion Ben Askren is returning to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,62052,85,1396],"class_list":["post-709025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-ncaa-wrestling-news-and-results","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}