Rikishi is a legend of today's wrestling business, having made an enormous impact during his run with WWE. Now, his sons are making a splash, as The Usos and Solo Sikoa are featured prominently in The Bloodline alongside Roman Reigns. However, at one point, Rikishi was involved in a drive-by shooting that nearly ended his life before he even made it to WWE.
Before he joined WWE, Rikishi admitted that there was a time as a teenager when he was running with the wrong crowd. He talked about an incident that change his life.
He admitted in an interview that because of his involvement with the wrong crowd, he was shot in the drive-by shooting.
"I was kind of getting into things that I wasn’t supposed to get into. One day I got hit by a drive-by shooting and that kind of changed my outlook on life."
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He added that he felt he was given a second chance, as he survived. But this came after he was pronounced dead by the doctors for three minutes.
"I was given a second chance. They pronounced me dead for three minutes in the General Hospital in San Francisco. To be able to see the pain of my family … I was in hospital for two months. As I looked around, I seen a lot of hurt on my family, hurt on my mother’s face, my parents. I felt it was my responsibility to be able to make this better."
The incident forced him to change his life as a whole.
Rikishi eventually ended up joining WWE because of the incident
Rikishi cleaned up his act completely after the incident.
He had been 17 at the time. After spending two months in the hospital, his mother sent him to live with her brothers, Afa and Sika. They trained him to become professional wrestlers, which led to him eventually finding a place in WWE, after initial runs elsewhere.
Thankfully, the star ended up doing well in his career and is a rightful WWE Hall of Famer now.
What do you think of the WWE Hall of Famer's story about this incident? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.