Roman Reigns Faces a New Battle

Roman Reigns Faces a New Battle

Danielle Pancoast, Print Editor

“I want to make one thing clear — by no means is this a retirement speech. I will beat this and I will be back, so you will see me very very soon.” This is how WWE wrestler Roman Reigns began his speech on Monday Night Raw Oct. 22.

Reigns is a four-time world champion in WWE, having held the WWE World Heavyweight Championship three times and the Universal Championship once. He is also a United States Champion, an Intercontinental Champion, a WWE Tag Team Champion, the 2015 Royal Rumble winner, and the 2014 Superstar of the Year. He tied the WWE record for most eliminations in a Survivor Series elimination match and then set the record for most eliminations in a Royal Rumble match.

To say the least, Reigns is very talented at what he does. He comes from a big family of wrestlers, the Anoa’i Family. The family consists of WWE wrestlers Rikishi, Umaga, Yokozuna, current wrestlers The Usos, and even Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

Before his wrestling career began, Reigns went to Georgia Tech to play college football and proceeded to the Minnesota Vikings and then Jacksonville Jaguars to continue his football career. After the 2008 season, he retired from football to pursue wrestling. He was signed by WWE in 2010.

Since he has signed, he has done remarkable things with his career, breaking records and winning countless championships in many different events. One of his most memorable accomplishments was his defeat against both Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins, two very talented and well known wrestlers, in a Triple Threat Match.

Now 33 years old, Reigns has been struggling with Leukemia for 11 years and it has recently returned. This was unknown to many fans until a Monday Night Raw episode where he publicly announced that he would be taking a break from WWE to focus on fighting and beating Leukemia for a second time.

Leukemia is a rare form of cancer where blood-forming tissues hinder the body’s ability to fight infection. There are fewer than 200,000 cases of this in the U.S. per year. Reigns has already beat this once in his life and is preparing to be done with it for good.

A very respected and well-liked athlete, Reigns is receiving love and support from not only his WWE family, but also many other famous personnel who are fans of his talent and skill.