Roman Reigns recently did an interview with pnj.com. Here are the highlights.
On how he’s feeling five months after remission: “I feel really good. It’s nice to just have a greater perspective of everything and not just necessarily worrying about getting everything done. When you’re in a position like I’ve been in for a while, you’re just trying to look out for everybody and make sure your family’s all good. Sometimes you can lose track of yourself, sometimes you can put yourself on the back burner. It was really nice to see everybody drop the character and just pick up the man behind the character. Everybody got behind Joe. For me to have that type of support, that type of love, those type of positive vibes being sent my way, I mean, I couldn’t have asked for a better reception. Especially when you speak about something so personal, something that’s just so tied into who I am and what I’ve been through and just my story. It was really nice just to see everybody bring that positive light and pick up somebody who was struggling at the time.”
On how long it took him to get back to top shape physically: “Man, I’ve been killing it lately as far as my nutrition and my training so I feel really good right now, but, yeah man, there was definitely that transition getting back, just before (WrestleMania). And I think that’s why you saw me kind of leaning on The Shield at the time, in that very first match back. I mean, it’s live out there, anything can happen, so they just wanted to make sure to kind of keep the training wheels on me for that match, and I was gliding in there. I felt really good with the role I was playing. Then we made the next move going into ‘Mania against Drew (McIntyre) and I felt really good there. It gave me a good result. I was able to go in there and kind of feel like my old self and kind of do my thing. Over the past few months now, I’ve really been able to hone in and take my time, work through things, and get my feet down back solid to where I’m rooted in my routine. Everything’s just running on all cylinders now, it’s smooth.”
On his approach to the wrestling industry since his leukemia went into remission: “I’ve always been grateful for the opportunities and the things I’ve been able to accomplish but sometimes you can get moving so fast — especially in this show business game — where you’re just bouncing from town to town, flight to flight, car service to car service, you don’t even know where you are. But to be able to really slow it down and break it down to the simplest form, which is, ‘Thank you God for waking me up. Thank you for this day. Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to do my thing. Thank you for giving me the freedom to just go out there and just do me, whether it’s motivating, inspiring, just me being me, having the opportunity to express myself and to create the form of entertainment that I like to create.’ There are times where it’s like, man, I don’t know if this is exactly what I want to do as far as what we’re about to do (out there on TV) but man, what an opportunity. Even if it’s not perfect it’s still so great. You have to see the way I’m saying this, you’d have to see my eyes and to really know and believe what I’m saying, but even when it’s not perfect it’s still perfect. It’s still such a good life, it’s still such a blessing … Enjoy the ride because at the end of the day you jumped on that board, you swam all the way out there, you stood up on the wave, so you may as well enjoy that ride in.”
