WWE News: Roman Reigns Opens Up On Recent Leukemia Battle In Latest ‘Chronicle’ Episode
On last week’s episode of Monday Night Raw, Roman Reigns announced that his leukemia was back in remission. This news comes four months after he relinquished his Universal Championship due to his illness, and went on hiatus immediately after. The announcement effectively signaled his return to in-ring competition, and on Monday’s episode of the WWE Network documentary series Chronicle, Reigns went into detail about his recent battle with leukemia — starting with the moment he learned that the disease had returned after over a decade.
As quoted by Pro Wrestling Sheet, Reigns was first informed that things were amiss with his recent blood tests while he was at a weekend live event. At that time, he was advised that he would need to take another blood test “because they thought something was off.” When he arrived to shoot a subsequent episode of Monday Night Raw, Reigns was then told that WWE’s medical staff needed to speak to him about an urgent matter.
“When I got there, I could tell. The whole crew was in there. And they broke the news that my white blood cell count was obviously elevated. We could point fingers in certain directions, but with my history, they kinda already knew what was going on,” Reigns recalled.
“Kinda the quickest thing that hit me was the fact that I’d have to drop the title.”
It sounds like #TheShield @WWERomanReigns @WWERollins & @TheDeanAmbrose will ride one last time at #WWEFastlane! #RAW pic.twitter.com/Ryo1D7c9OP
— WWE Universe (@WWEUniverse) March 5, 2019
According to a report from Forbes, Roman Reigns was originally thought to be suffering from an injury — or possibly taking the weekend off — when he missed the weekend house shows right before his hiatus. But as he confirmed on the October 22, 2018, episode of Monday Night Raw, Reigns’ leukemia had returned after being in remission since late 2008. On this week’s episode of Chronicle, Reigns also revealed the type of leukemia he was suffering from — chronic myeloid (CML) leukemia, which he said was caught while still in the early stages.
“It’s pretty much where you wanna catch this disease, this illness, and pretty much for me, there’s a pill that they make. They make an oral chemotherapy. There’s a few different types now. When I first started, there was just one.”
While Reigns explained that taking the aforementioned pill is different from “true” chemotherapy with radiation treatment, he stressed that he still deals with his share of side effects and some “nastiness.” He also looked back at the challenges he faced during his first few months of treatment, where he wasn’t able to properly move around, but admitted that he ultimately “got his feet under” him when he started working out in recent weeks.
Despite the fact that he announced his return to the ring on last week’s Monday Night Raw, Roman Reigns has yet to wrestle again in an actual match. He did, however, take part in this week’s reunion of The Shield alongside Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose. The faction is scheduled to face Baron Corbin, Bobby Lashley, and Drew McIntyre in a six-man tag team match at the Fastlane pay-per-view on Sunday, as was noted by Comic Book.
