AJ Francis elaborates on his battle with diabetes.
Former WWE star Top Dolla revealed on social media last week that his infamous botched dive on WWE SmackDown one year ago actually saved his life because it led to him discovering his has diabetes.
During a recent interview with MuscleManMalcolm, Francis explained more details regarding the diagnosis.
“At the time, as everyone knows, I was losing a lot of weight,” Francis recalled. “It’s funny because when I got back to WWE, I recognized the opportunity in front of me and I didn’t want to waste it. So I started eating better, I started drinking a lot more water. I started actually going out of my way to take care of myself… When I was losing all this weight, I was losing strength too, but I thought that was — I mean, I’ve been over 300 pounds my whole life. 263 was the lowest I got, but the thing is, I’m trying to lose weight.”
Francis noted that he wasn’t as strong as he once was because he wasn’t the same size. He lost a hundred pounds in the months after returning to WWE, which led to him sleeping better too. But the day he went to perform that dive he’s done successfully several times before, he knew something wasn’t feeling right.
“My legs felt a little off the day of the show, but I didn’t know if it was a nervous thing because this was a our first big opportunity,” Francis said. “So I was like, ‘Alright, cool.’ I go out, dive doesn’t work, right After the match, I go to the back. Triple H comes up to me and he’s like, ‘Are you okay?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m good. I’m okay, I’ll be fine, but I don’t know what happened.’ He was like, ‘What happened?’ I was like, ‘Man, I went to jump and my legs just didn’t go. I don’t know what happened.’
“So then I started going to different doctors asking them ideas. Finally, it wasn’t even a doctor that suggested it might be diabetes, it was actually my chiropractor suggested it might be diabetes because I was starting to lose sensation in my toes.”
Francis noted he’s been seeing a chiropractor since the end of his NFL days due to bulging disks in his back. He started to wonder if the loss of sensation had to do with the old back injuries. When consulting his chiropractor, it was suggested he get his blood sugar checked.
“But me being a big, dumb idiot, I still waited a couple of weeks before I went to the doctor and got my blood sugar checked. Then when I got my blood sugar checked, it was 626,” Francis revealed. “There are people that pass out when their blood sugar gets in the 300s. There are people that live with their blood sugar at 7-800, like it depends on how your body is. But I’m at the point that I could pass out into a diabetic coma at anytime. Like I’m losing full sensation in my feet at this point.”
After the blood test results came in, his doctor recommended he get started on diabetes medication immediately.
“I wanna say I was — relieved isn’t the right word because obviously I found out I have diabetes, you’re not relieved you have diabetes, but like I figured out what was wrong. I figured out what was wrong and now there’s a solution, ‘Okay, let’s do this, let’s hit it head on.’ Now, I look better than I have in years and I’m 330 again. This 330 looks healthier than when I was 260. It’s crazy.”
The former Hit Row member also gave a shout-out to chiropractors worldwide, the doctors who helped him get his life back on track, and his friends like Ashante Adonis, B-Fab, and The Usos who knew what he was going through privately.
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If you use any quotes from this article, please credit MuscleManMalcolm with a h/t to WrestleZone for the transcription.
