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Rikishi has opened up on how a near-fatal incident from his younger years resulted in him falling into the wrestling business.
In the latest episode of Insight with Chris Van Vliet, the former WWE Superstar was adamant that pro wrestling "saved his life" after he was almost killed in a drive-by shooting incident when he was 17 years old.
"Pro wrestling saved my life. In San Francisco, California, the streets of San Francisco, where we were raised up back in the bay area, I was raised in the swamps… And I’ll be honest, I wasn’t the best of kids, that followed the rules. My background… My grandparents are preachers of a church. My mother is a daughter of a preacher. We would go to church and pray all the time, but I was just going the opposite. It was rough back in the bay area. I was running with the wrong crowd. At seventeen, I got hit by a drive-by shooting. I damn near lost my life. I was dead for three minutes. I woke up in the ambulance and all I could see was my mother’s face."
Rikishi says his mother sent him to live with The Wild Samoans
After being shot, Rikishi said his mother made the decision to send him away from California to live with his uncles, Afa and Sika. The duo was better known for wrestling in front of audiences around the world as The Wild Samoans. Rikishi credits this move with setting him on a path towards a better life.
"So I was in the hospital for two months. And when I got out, my mother had made the decision that I was going to leave California and she was sending me to her brothers, Afa and Sika. So I was eighteen by then, and away I went. So I kind of just fell into the industry… I’m happy she did what she did. Because who’s to say me getting back out after being shot, I could have been running with the same crowd again. So that’s how that all started, the rest is history.”
Rikishi was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2015 after a long and successful career. He is currently preparing to train American rap star Bow Wow to become a pro wrestler.
