Ben Askren’s Illness: The Terrifying Story of How a Staph Infection Nearly Killed a Champion

By all accounts, Ben Askren was a forty-year-old Wisconsin resident in good health at the end of May 2025. Later, his wife Amy would say that he was “completely healthy just five weeks ago”—a statement that seems more poignant in hindsight, given what the next month and a half would entail. One of the most renowned wrestlers in American history would be unconscious in an intensive care unit, on a ventilator, fighting for his life while his heart stopped and restarted four times within days of what seemed to be a common bacterial infection.

Staphylococcus aureus, a common bacterium that lives harmlessly on the skin and in the nasal passages of a large portion of the population at any given time, was the initial cause of the illness. It usually only results in a minor skin irritation for the majority of people. However, staph can spread devastatingly quickly throughout the respiratory system in some circumstances, especially if a person has just fought off a virus that has damaged the lung’s protective lining. In Askren’s case, the infection progressed to severe pneumonia, which in turn led to bilateral lung failure, which ultimately required a double lung transplant. The transition from a healthy man to a transplant patient in about five weeks is still incredibly challenging to comprehend.

Askren can’t recall what transpired from May 28 to July 2. In the Instagram video he posted from his hospital bed, he stated as much. His voice was quieter than most MMA fans would recognize, and his face conveyed the unique tiredness of someone who has been unconscious for weeks and is only now starting to realize what they missed. In order to piece together what he couldn’t recall, he had read through his wife’s journal. “It’s like a movie,” he remarked. These pages contained the four cardiac arrests, each lasting about twenty seconds. The ventilator, coma, transplant list, and surgery were all equally important. Only Amy’s handwriting contained the forty-five days of his life.

The physical cost was obvious and severe. When Askren stepped on a scale at the hospital, he weighed 147 pounds. Askren was a welterweight competitor who spent his career controlling his body weight with the discipline that elite combat athletes develop over decades. He pointed out that since he was fifteen years old, he hadn’t been that light, using the dark humor that athletes use when nothing else quite works. In 45 days, I lost fifty pounds. Simply lost is muscle that took years to develop. That figure is unsettling not only from a medical standpoint but also as a representation of what a serious illness truly does to a body that was, by all standards, in excellent condition before the illness.

The narrative soon developed a second layer that revealed something unsettling about the way American healthcare is run. A double lung transplant is expected to cost about two million dollars. It would not be covered by Askren’s insurance. Amy started using crowdsourcing. At a press conference, Jake Paul, the boxer and influencer who had knocked Askren out in a pay-per-view match in 2021, went public and offered to assist with the costs while also criticizing UFC CEO Dana White and the insurance sector for failing to intervene. It was a strange moment: the man who had previously earned money by winning a boxing match against Askren was now raising money for him. The gesture found its way into the culture, whether it was sincere or partially theatrical. In the meantime, the wrestling community had been coming together throughout, showering Askren with support on social media that he compared to going to his own funeral while he was still alive.

Beyond the realm of sports, Askren’s story has a public health component that merits consideration. In comparison to the general population, athletes participating in close-contact sports like wrestling, jiu-jitsu, and mixed martial arts have disproportionately high rates of staph colonization, according to Neil Maniar, director of Northeastern University’s master of Public Health program. Because training is physically demanding, there are frequent opportunities for skin-to-skin transmission, and the bacteria have direct access to open wounds or even small abrasions during practice. The bacteria can live on the body indefinitely without harming it, so colonization by itself is not harmful. The risk arises when immunity is weakened—by a previous infection, accumulated exhaustion, or something as insignificant as an unnoticed cut—and the bacteria end up where they shouldn’t. There is no medical anomaly associated with the sequence that put Askren in the intensive care unit. Infectious disease experts say it’s a predictable worst-case scenario that the combat sports community probably doesn’t talk about enough.

Askren was getting better by the beginning of July and recovering, albeit slowly and with what was obviously a long road ahead. He claimed to be getting stronger, relearning how to use everything, and making his way home from the hospital. More than the title belts, perhaps more than anything from his competitive career, he had been clearly impacted by the reaction of the wrestling community. He composed himself, appearing sincere, as he said, “I feel motivated to keep giving back,” in the video. “I love you guys.”

It’s difficult to ignore the story’s unique form: a man who endured physical punishment throughout his career, was knocked out on pay-per-view by a YouTube celebrity, and managed to maintain his likability despite the humiliation, nearly undone by bacteria rather than a rival. He can’t recall being in a Wisconsin hospital room for more than 45 days, but it wasn’t during a fight. In the end, the body that withstood numerous training sessions, professional fights, and a well-publicized boxing defeat turned out to be susceptible to something unseen and commonplace. No one should have to learn that lesson in this manner. However, anyone who is paying attention can find it in Askren’s story.