Rikishi spent his teenage years hanging out with the wrong crowd before turning pro. Rikishi recently discussed a tragic incident in which he was shot during a drive-by shooting in an interview with GV Wire. He added that this experience had altered his life.
“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.”
“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.”