Pumping Iron and Insulin: Discover pro-wrestling the Kyle O'Reilly way

The day was August 2nd, 2017. Aleister Black was standing in the middle of an NXT ring, waiting for his opponent to join him. The passionate NXT crowd had no idea who was gonna show up till the name "Kyle O'Reilly" on the giant screen brought the hardcore fans on their feet and the roof continued to absorb the loud cheers.

Kyle O'Reilly was already a veteran and an established name in the pro-wrestling industry before WWE opened its account to acquire his services for the yellow brand. The talented wrestler was a celebrated name in the indie circuit of US, UK, and Europe.

His impressive resume reflects a lot of titles he has earned throughout his career including the respected titles like ROH World Championship, PWG World Championship, ROH World Tag Team Championship (3 times with Bobby Fish), IWGP Junior Tag Team Championship(2 times with Bobby Fish), and many others.

Even if you are a hardcore WWE fan who doesn't watch products of other wrestling promotions, I can safely assume that when most of you first saw him wrestle in a WWE ring, you realized how good he is in that ring. The 14-year veteran is as amazing a mat wrestler as he is a striker. He avidly trains in Mixed Martial Arts, as reflected by his wrestling style.

Over the years, he has put on striking and grappling clinics, during his tenure in New Japan Pro-Wrestling, Ring of Honor and in NXT. He has shown how smooth he is when it comes to the transition of a sequence, construction of a match, story-telling, and controlling the tempo of a match as needed.

However, a lot of people don't know that O'Reilly is one of the rarest athletes suffering from a serious medical problem- Type 1 Diabetes. I was quite surprised when I learned about it last year by listening to an interview Chris Jericho conducted with O'Reilly on his podcast "Talk is Jericho".

One can imagine how difficult performing on countless live and TV shows amidst so much traveling whilst maintaining a strict lifestyle to handle this problem and at the same time, living your dream. This is no small feat to achieve. Kyle has been resonating quite well with the vast WWE audience owing to some tremendous performances he has displayed ever since he arrived in WWE.

During his conversation with Jericho, Kyle talked about the difficulties he faces being a Type 1 diabetic. He maintains a clean lifestyle, balanced diet, strict training regime and resilience to live his dreams. The insulin shots are unable to hold back Kyle who trains very hard and wrestles with everything he has got.

He has wrestled a lot of brutal matches in his career despite being a diabetic as an injury takes a long time to heal if one is suffering from diabetes. This shows the passion he has for what he does and at what length he can go to give the audience a good match.

O'Reilly is an inspiration to people around the globe suffering from diabetes. To his credit, he works a lot towards spreading awareness regarding Type 1 diabetes. He meets children, youngsters, and adults suffering from Type 1 diabetes to cheer them up and inspire them to fight for what they love and what they believe in. He is a role-model for everyone to stop giving excuses, be mentally tough and work hard to live our respective dreams.