Benji Mower is still training, still wrestling when he can and still talking like a man who refuses to let cancer define the script.
The Oklahoma State heavyweight, a senior from Edmond Memorial High School, was diagnosed with testicular cancer shortly after the birth of his daughter, Leia Lu, in June. Since then, Mower has already gone through orchiectomy surgery and started five rounds of chemotherapy, all while keeping a sharp focus on getting back to the mat.
A CT scan also showed a tumor the size of his fist next to his kidney, and Mower has a retroperitoneal lymphadenectomy surgery scheduled later this month to remove the mass in his abdomen.
“So they're pretty much going to cut me open, take everything out, cut the tumor out and put it all back in me and sew me back up,” Mower said.
The fight has stretched beyond the hospital. Mower and his wife, Azzlyn, have started a GoFundMe campaign to help cover medical treatment, travel costs for the family and general care. The timing has made everything tougher, with Mower moving between his own treatment and another hospital where Azzlyn was recovering from a post-birth infection.
Even in the middle of that grind, Mower has tried to stay around wrestling. He has continued training with Oklahoma State teammates when possible, and his outlook has stayed pointed in one direction.
“When I learned that I had a tumor mass, I was laughing, my wife was crying,” Mower said in a video posted Sunday. “God knows I want a challenge, and He gave me a challenge.
I see it as almost a privilege because the higher the mountain you got to climb, the stronger your legs get. There’s no harder scrap than a scrap for your life.”
The treatments have come with obvious limits. Mower said the chemo, which seeps out through sweat and skin contact, made it harder to hold his daughter. Still, he kept leaning into the work.
“It’s definitely hard,” Mower said. “Mentally, it breaks you down and makes you want to give up, but really the way I saw it is there’s no choice. I could sit there and be sad about it and complain or be happy and enjoy it.”
Azzlyn has seen that same stubborn energy up close. After Mower’s initial surgery, she walked into a quiet hallway filled with recovering patients and heard him singing “Let her cry” by Hootie & the Blowfish.
“He’s crazy, but not in a bad way,” Azzlyn said. “Like, he likes to get punched in the face, he likes to do all these crazy things. I think it’s interesting.”
Mower has been with the OSU wrestling team since 2022. Last season, he competed at the Cougar Clash and the Cyclone Open, going 6-4 combined. At the Cyclone Open, he dropped his second match before winning three straight, including a tech fall in the fifth-place match at heavyweight.
OSU coach David Taylor said Mower’s approach stands out.
“He’s a beast and, obviously, he’s going through something right now and sometimes that stuff happens,” Taylor said. “But his perspective of how he approaches life and how he approaches what he does, he’s a pretty special guy and we’re really, really, grateful for him to be a part of our program.”
The surgery later this month means Mower expects to stop working out for about six months, and that may be the hardest part. But his goals haven’t changed.
He wants to get back on the wrestling mat first, then move into MMA after his college career. And he says he has no doubt where that road ends.
“I’m not going to let something like this stop me," Mower said. "I don’t like the idea of letting cancer stop me from doing what I love.”
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