Roman Reigns has shared heartbreaking details on how he battled with leukemia and called it a sports death sentence. He also spoke about how it was a devastating day for his wife.

The Tribal Chief is riding a wave of success after a long time fighting external forces that were not under his control. One of them was his battle with leukemia. He was diagnosed with it when he was still trying to make it as a football player.

He was a guest on Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast when he went into detail on how it was a sports death sentence for him. Roman Reigns said:

“Yeah, they were like some were hoping that it was just a misread, but you have way more white blood cells than you’re supposed to have. I think at that point I had like 70,000 white blood cells and typically you’re anywhere from like 5,000 to 10,000 or so, you know what I mean? If everything’s running normally. Um, so they had no clue what was going on. Um, and at my age and at that time there weren’t other people like me now that you know they’ve ran in a similar situation. But back then there was nobody like me. There was nobody that come out at 21 years old collegiate athlete with leukemia, right? So, I thought it was just pretty much a sports death sentence, you know what I mean? It was a giant asterisk that was going to be attached to my name and they weren’t going to touch me. And that’s kind of what happened. But yeah, I mean that that was like the day that changed my life. At that point, you know, I was living my dream, but you know how it is. I mean, you’re right. Everything’s riding on this. The last 20 years have all been put towards this moment.” [44:15 – 45:21]

Roman Reigns shares how it was a devastating day for his wife

In the same podcast episode, WWE World Champion Roman Reigns also spoke about how that announcement was hard for his wife Galina Becker and how it was a devastating day for them both.

“My girlfriend at the time, who is now my wife, you know, we were pregnant. You know, my daughter, you know, she was, you know, probably three or four months pregnant at the time. And I knew that was happening. So, more than ever, I wanted to get my ducks aligned and it just wasn’t happening. So, yeah, that was a devastating day,” Roman Reigns said. [45:21 – 45:35]

Roman Reigns has since defeated cancer and has gone on to write his name in WWE’s history books.

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