Less than one year after undergoing lifesaving surgery, Ben Askren has incredibly announced he’s returning to the fight game.The former UFC welterweight contender was hospitalised last year due to a severe case of pneumonia and had a successful double lung transplant surgery just weeks later.Askren is a former Bellator and ONE FC welterweight championGettyAskren harrowingly revealed he ‘died four times’ in a health update the following month, admitting his health scare left him on his ‘deathbed.’But, as the 41-year-old from Iowa proved throughout his career, Askren bounced back and returned to training in November.When is Askren back?Speaking to Ariel Helwani on Monday, Askren has now revealed he will return to the mats under the Real American Freestyle (RAF) banner on his birthday – July 18.“I love wrestling, I love what [RAF] are doing,” Askren, who was actually the first athlete signed to the surging unscripted professional wrestling league, explained.“I’ve been coaching for three months or so now on regular practices, and when they told me they were doing a show in Milwaukee on July 18 — my birthday — something spoke to me and said, ‘I need to wrestle in that.’“So I’ve been doing my best every single day in training to get in shape, and it’s feeling really good.“I’m in the wrestling room, wrestling with the guys, not super hard yet, but I’m doing things.“I told them last week, ‘I want to wrestle,’ and they said, ‘OK, if you want to wrestle, we support it.'”Askren will face former UFC champion Belal Muhammad, who returns to action this weekend in Las Vegas, at RAF11.The match marks the first time Askren, a member of the 2008 US Olympic team, will compete since his recovery from surgery.View Tweet: https://x.com/RAFWrestlingUSA?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwAskren has overcome such a long recovery period to get back to full fitness@benaskren - InstagramThe American once described being on his ‘deathbed’ – but he is now ready to make a comebackGettyHis bout against Muhammad will act as the co-main event to Arman Tsarukyan’s highly anticipated meeting with Colby Covington at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.Askren has also confirmed it will be his last competitive match.When was Askren in the UFC?Askren signed with the UFC in 2018 following successful spells with ONE Championship and Bellator.He held welterweight gold in both of his previous promotions and was 18-0 when he made it to the UFC. The American’s deal with the UFC was part of a trade agreement with ONE in exchange for flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson.Askren made his debut at UFC 235 in March 2019, scoring a trademark submission win over Robbie Lawler.Asken’s last fight was a defeat to Jake Paul in boxingGettyUFC ScheduleFor all the upcoming fights and results this year, check out talkSPORT.com’s UFC schedule.He was knocked out by Jorge Masvidal in five seconds – the fastest KO in promotional history – four months later, and his final UFC fight was a submission defeat to Demian Maia.Askren’s last combat sports outing to date was a first-round boxing defeat to Jake Paul in April 2021.