In a recent interview with Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Rikishi admitted that he feared for his life when facing The Undertaker at Armageddon in 2000. The match was iconic and typical of its time, mixing big names with big stunts. In this instance, Rikishi got choke slammed off the top of the steel cage onto a truck.
The Samoan was very honest when discussing his Hell in a Cell match and said “I always say in thirty seconds an accident can happen, and he could have died in any one of those big bumps that he’d taken. So it was my time. But I never knew that, when my time would come, it would be taking a bump backwards onto a steel flatbed. There’s no rewind from that. Meaning that when he grabbed me, my last words to him were “Tell my family I love them.” You know what I mean?”
Obviously, had the choke slam been botched, Rikishi could have missed the truck and possibly died. As it happens, The Deadman is well trained in boxing and also grappling martial arts, so he has built the reputation of being a safe worker in the ring.
Ironically, Rikishi was once shot during a drive-by shooting and was pronounced medically dead for over 3 minutes. His interview shows that even though wrestlers are notoriously tough, they are still human after all.
