{"id":368083,"date":"2025-12-25T13:44:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T13:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/368083\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T13:44:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T13:44:09","slug":"ben-askrens-message-for-fans-coming-into-2026-you-can-do-amazing-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/368083\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Askren\u2019s message for fans coming into 2026: \u2018You can do amazing things\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Bellator and ONE champion Ben Askren\u2019s story is one of the craziest of 2025. In early June, \u201cFunky\u201d was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia so severe it put him on death\u2019s door. He spent 45 days in a medically induced coma, basically died four times,<\/a> and got a double lung transplant<\/a> to save his life.<\/p>\n

Six months after that nightmare scenario, Askren is back up and going. Video footage from November<\/a> captured him getting some light wrestling training in, and he was on hand for the Real American Freestyle 4<\/a> show on December 20th in Indiana. The Schmo got to ask him a few questions about his turbulent 2025, and Ben\u2019s answers will inspire you.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u2018how you doing\u2019 question is always funny because I\u2019m doing great compared to what I was doing a month ago, and great compared to a month before that,\u201d Askren said. \u201cBut I still got a long ways to go to, like, feel what would be called normal compared to, prior to being sick.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish I could do rigorous activities,\u201d he said of his impressive progress. \u201cMy strength is starting to come back. I got my grip coming back and whatnot. My cardio, though? Bro, I get so tired so fast. I run up a flight of stairs, it\u2019s no good. I mean, I almost died, so I suppose I got an excuse. But I gotta get the cardio back.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Askren\u2019s recovery has been incredible, there\u2019s no doubt the entire experience has been extremely tough.<\/a> But \u201cFunky\u201d is trying to keep things in perspective and use his story to motivate others.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I had to say there\u2019s a good part of almost die almost dying, that would be it: my ability to bounce back from the bottom,\u201d he said. \u201cI mean, I was on the bottom, right? I was on my deathbed, and people were able to see that the words I speak are the words I live by \u2026 I\u2019m on bottom no matter where I\u2019m at. I\u2019m gonna wake up every day, I\u2019m gonna work hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Askren had a message for those following his story.<\/p>\n

\u201cTalent doesn\u2019t exist,\u201d he insisted. \u201cIf you really, really put your mind to something and you\u2019re dedicated, you put in time over a course of a period of years, you can accomplish anything. And so I think people are impressed by my comeback, but I wake up every day and I put my mind to it. I do the very best I can every single day, and I think if everyone else tries to live by that, they can do amazing things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Bellator and ONE champion Ben Askren\u2019s story is one of the craziest of 2025. In early June,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,82],"class_list":["post-368083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}