During a recent interview with ESPN, WWE Superstar Roman Reigns commented on his WWE return and battle with leukemia. Highlights from Reigns’ appearance on ESPN’s “First Take” can be seen below:
On what he’s learned from his fight with leukemia: “That it’s okay to lean on people. It’s okay to accept that support. For the longest time I felt like I was on an island. I felt very insecure and I didn’t know how everyone would react. And especially being a public figure and a performer, I never wanted anyone to think that I was trying to make this benefit my performance, or my career, or what have you. So I just felt — I wanted people to respect me for the work that I put in and the performer that I am. But sometimes life throws a wrench at you and it’s not exactly how you plan. It put me at a crossroads to where I had to figure out if I wanted to continue to keep this secret of mine, or if I was able to tell my story and be able to connect with those who might be able to lean on it and use it as an inspiration.”
On how he managed going through the fight in private while maintaining a strong face in public: “It’s just something that, I guess as a young man I learned how to compartmentalize stuff and different emotions. I just always prided myself on still being able to live my life. I thought that was kind of the route that I wanted to go down. Still to this day, I really wanted people to respect the work and time I put into my craft. And the way I educated myself towards my trade, you know. I put everything into sports entertainment and learning how to lead this life. But as I said before, sometimes things just happen unexpectedly and not the way you plan. And you just kinda have to adjust and fill it on the fly. It was one of the better things I’ve done with my life. I think it’s given me new purpose. I’m still able to do all of the things that I love, and compete and create. I have a deep passion for storytelling, but it has also given me a different purpose on the people I connect with and the outreach we have, the platform, and the awareness. So if my story can help one person, then I think it’s was worth sharing.”
On how the world of sports has helped him in his fight against leukemia: “You know, I think that a lot of the disciplines that I learned through athletics and sports and competition has helped me. Obviously, it’s helped me a great way as far as staying in shape and maintaining a certain degree of health from a physical standpoint. For me to just continue to do that, even with the adversity that hit me, I think it’s cool for people to see that even though you get knocked down, people do pick themselves up and dust themselves off. And by no means are these situations to be prepared for. But being within the fraternity of athletics, it helped me to have opportunities and the amenities of, you know, physicals, doctors, medical teams, blood tests. So I think the big thing about my story is early detection and staying on top of the game. That way you can find yourself, even if something happens as far as a condition or illness, a disease…the quicker we know, the quicker we can take action. And that’s something that’s really helped me is the fact that I played football, the fact that I had blood tests, physicals. We were able to catch my form of leukemia in the chronic stages, the early stages. And we were able to do something. People are often scared to go to the hospital, they’re scared to see doctors and know exactly what’s going on. We have to get past that fear and we have to push each other to make sure that everything is okay.”
(h/t – 411 Mania)
