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“I was going through some stuff.”

In October, 2018, Anoa’i announced he had been privately battling leukemia for 11 years, only to have it return after being in remission.

He went on hiatus from Raw and relinquished the Universal Championship he held, before making a triumphant return to the ring in February.

The initial diagnosis was made one year before coming to Edmonton.

“It was so difficult at the time,” he said. “It was so ahead of its time and it just put a giant asterisk next to my name. If I was a team owner, would I want to take a chance on an unproven player?

“So for Edmonton to give me the opportunity, it was such a blessing. Even as a short one, it’s still a part of my journey.”

Back then, his six-foot-three frame held that of a 325-pound defensive tackle, as opposed to the 265-pound sculpture he sculpted down for the field of sports entertainment.

He ended up with nine tackles and a forced fumble in five games (three starts), before being released on Nov. 10.

But to Anoa’i, it’s less about the numbers and more about the relationships he had with former teammates, pointing to fellow former defensive linemen Dario Romero and Adam Braidwood, as well as fullback Calvin McCarty, who is the lone player still on the Eskimos roster.

“We were all in the Edmonton House, we stayed in a condominium that turns into a hotel for us, and it was like a bit of a frat house almost,” Anoa’i recalled. “A lot of camaraderie, we just always hung out. (McCarty) was one of the guys I definitely hung out with and I related to him because he had his wife and his young child and my wife and I had a young daughter as well, so we just had that bond.