Wrestler Benji Mower Remains Joyful, Committed to Cowboys Despite Cancer Diagnosis

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STILLWATER — In May, Oklahoma State heavyweight wrestler Benji Mower was diagnosed with testicular cancer. In an interview from Stilly Boys, Mower makes it clear he’s going to give the sport everything he can while battling cancer.

“No better recovery for cancer than just wrestling really, really hard,” Mower said.

He will have to reluctantly step away from the sport for a bit following a major surgery last week. Just ahead of the surgery, Mower came to coach David Taylor with a request.

“This kind of explains Benji,” Taylor told reporters on Tuesday. “So he wrestled last Tuesday (no, it was) two Tuesdays ago, and he was getting ready to go into surgery the following week. And he’s like, ‘Coach, can we wrestle live one more time before I go to surgery?’ … He’s like, ‘I just really want to wrestle a little better.’”

Unlike most of the Cowboys roster, Mower didn’t step foot on campus expecting to hold a national title belt over his head. He told Stilly Boys that he started wrestling in the seventh grade. It didn’t take long before he decided to become a Cowboy even though he would need to walk on.

“I just knew I wanted to go where I could be the best,” Mower said. “Even if I went there for five years and never started, I wanted to go somewhere I could become the best wrestler possible. From there on, I always wanted to be a Cowboy.”

On Tuesday, Taylor said Mower’s surgery went well and that he was expected to get out of the hospital in a “couple days.”

Always in your corner, Benji 🧡 pic.twitter.com/6tIkVb1VIH

— OSU Cowboy Wrestling (@CowboyWrestling) September 26, 2026

“He’s just awesome dude, and he’s so mentally, talking about mentally tough, like unbelievable perspective on life and how he approaches things,” Taylor said. “And he just loves the sport of wrestling, and all he could talk about was like he couldn’t wait to get back to wrestling practice when I went and saw him the other day. Which is just what wrestling can mean to somebody, which is pretty great.

“What he means to our program is pretty significant. So yeah, definitely thinking about him. We’re looking forward to getting him, you know, just back around us, and yeah, he’s an awesome dude.”

Mower’s positive attitude and commitment to wrestling have remained strong despite the fact that his cancer treatments coincided with the birth of his daughter Leia. At times, due to the chemo treatments, Mower told Stilly Boys he was forced to limit contact with her.

It’s easy to imagine all of this breaking most people, but not Mower.

“Life, it is live or die, wrestling, it is win or lose,” Mower said. “No matter what, I’m going to scrap. I’m going to fight.

“It is a pretty easy choice. It is a challenge. I’m just going to keep on fighting, keep on doing what I do. God knows I want a challenge, and he gave me a challenge. This is one of the hardest mentally and physically that I’ve gone through. But I see it as almost a privilege because the higher the mountain that you got to climb, the stronger your legs get afterwards once you have climbed it. … There is no harder scrap than the scrap for your life.”

Please click the link to watch the Stilly Boys video on Mower and his family here. The video is linked to a GoFundMe set up to support the Mowers with “treatment, medical bills, travel and lodging, and everyday expenses during this difficult time.”