Omos Reveals Why He Is Viewed As An "Anomaly In The Medical World"
During the latest episode of the Out of Character Podcast with Ryan Satin, Omos joined the show to talk about his brief stint at the University of South Florida playing NCAA College Basketball.
The former RAW Tag Team Champion detailed why he had to halt his basketball career in South Florida, dealing with a brain tumor.
"It was an email from a doctor and it was sent to the President of the University and my coach was CC'd in the email," Omos said. "My coach said to me 'I don't know who this guy is, but he seems like a very high up guy on the campus. I want you to look at this email.'
"I read it, it said 'hey, I noticed that one of your guys, Tolulope Omogbehin, he's a big guy but I think he has a tumor by the size of his face and the size of his hands. He has a pituitary tumor and he has to get that checked out asap.' I'm reading this email like no way, I'm fine and I looked at my coaches and they said 'what do you think?'
"I said, 'I don't think I have anything. But hey, I'm going to do it just so I can have a piece of mind.' I tried to shut them up, that Wednesday I did an MRI, took about a couple days, went to the trainers' room and they're like nah, go up to the coach's office.
"Go up to the coach's office, it's the President of the University, all the doctors are in there, they're like 'so, this is your MRI right here of your brain, you see that little spec right there? You have a brain tumor. We don't know if it's benign or it's a cancerous tumor but we're going to have to put you on the sides for a while and figure out how to deal with this.'
"It was a shock to me because when you tear your ACL, you can always come back and control it, do rehab and get stronger and faster, that's easy. This threw such a curveball because it was out of my control, I could not control anything and I remember having to do the first surgery and that was very very trying for me. They had to go through my nose and it was very very traumatic."
Continuing to talk about his time in college basketball, Omos mentioned how on top of the pituitary tumor he dealt with, the 7'3” star also dealt with several other diseases. The RAW superstar mentioned how he became a medical anomaly given his size and the number of issues he has dealt with.
"In the process of doing the tests, they found out that not only did I have the pituitary tumor, I had gigantism, I had partial crushes disease, which is very rare," Omos said. "It's different forms of large human beings but it's different variations and I had all three combinations.
"I had the other three combined and my case was very very unique. It was the first time in medical history they had seen someone with all three together and I became this anomaly in the medical world. I had a journal published about me, about my case."
The Undertaker compared Omos to Andre the Giant in November, calling him as close as we've seen to The Giant. It's unclear what's next for Omos, after his WrestleMania 38 loss to Bobby Lashley and partnership with MVP.
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Out of Character with Ryan Satin with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.