"It got super heavy" - Roman Reigns on the toughest personal battle of his career
"The Head of the Table" Roman Reigns has gone through some difficult stages throughout his life. According to him, particularly when he was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia in 2007.
The announcement regarding Reigns's illness was first made public on an episode of RAW in October 2018. He addressed the WWE Universe about going on hiatus to undergo treatment. The Undisputed Universal Champion returned shortly after on February 25th to announce that he was in remission and would return to action.
Speaking to Logan Paul on the Impaulsive podcast, Roman Reigns recalled the first time he was diagnosed with Leukemia during his brief stint in the NFL. The Tribal Chief stated that it was a shock for him to hear the word cancer. Doctors stated that his bloodwork from a physical for the NFL showed some irregularities:
"Technically we weren't quite sure, this is where we saw the blood lapse that showed the elevated white blood cells which clearly says your body is attacking something, it's fighting off something. So they were like yeah it could be anything Venereal disease, infection, cancer and all I heard was cancer, I'm like 'Woah,' it got super heavy." said Roman Reigns. (21:00-21:26)
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Roman Reigns was overwhelmed after his first Leukemia diagnosis
Right now, Roman Reigns is at the very top of the food chain in WWE and is undoubtedly in the prime of his career.
The Tribal Chief has successfully crossed two years as the top champion in the company and has beaten every challenger in his way alongside The Bloodline. But challenges in Reigns's personal life were at times difficult to overcome all at once as he recalled being diagnosed with leukemia that was caught whilst doing bloodwork.
During his conversation with Logan Paul on the Impaulsive podcast, Roman Reigns spoke about feeling overwhelmed after hearing the upsetting news. He also stated that the illness also caused him to be cut out of the NFL and put a question mark on his football career:
"So I compartmentalize emotions sometimes so I think it was just so overwhelming that it wasn't even believable and even then it was like this was back in '07 so this was years ago. So you hear about younger people with blood cancers more often now but back then a 21-year-old come straight out of college, a division one football player supposed to be kinda peak health right? You never would expect that. So it put a huge asterisk next to my name when it came to the NFL. So it was just an uphill battle from there man." Roman Reigns said. (22:04-22:36)
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Please credit the Impaulsive podcast and give a H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription if you use quotes from this article.