Richard Holliday Discusses Beating Hodgkin’s Lymphoma And Returning To Wrestling

Speaking recently with Fightful, Richard Holliday shared some details on his medical recovery from his battle with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and how he worked through the treatment process. Holliday also explained how he kept his mental priorities established throughout his convalescence. You can find some highlights on the topic from Holliday and watch the full interview below.

On his current status and attitude: “Most importantly, I’m feeling fantastic. I am just in such a great state of mind, body, spirit. I feel amazing. Every day is a blessing. It is beautiful. I feel awesome, man. I really do. It’s been a really wonderful past couple of months since everything. Everything’s a blessing. Everything is great.”

On the biggest struggles during his illness: “At this point, it’s one of those things where it’s not a topic where I’m going to talk about it all the time, but listen, I’m totally cognizant of what I represent and who may need to hear this. That is so cool for me. If I can help one person by telling my story, that’s amazing for me. In fact, I actually met a kid this past weekend in North Carolina for AML Wrestling and we chatted. Hopefully I was able to help him a little bit. Going back to your question, it was the unknown that was the most worrisome for me. I remember when I did that match against Hammerstone in New York for MLW, I was living in California for a month prior, and then MLW had flown me in for that show in New York. I’m leaving California just pale and frail and very odd. I didn’t feel good. I just remember getting to the arena that day and just pounding DayQuil. I’m just taking as much of it as I can. I’m telling Court, I’m like, ‘I’m okay. I’ll be fine. I’ll push through.’ Court’s like, ‘Are you okay, man? Are you sure?’ I’m like, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine.’ It’s just how we are as wrestlers. We’re just like, ‘We’ll push through. We’ll worry about everything on the backend.’”

On what led up to receiving a diagnosis: “I ended up going out there and having a match that I was actually very proud of with Hammerstone. It was a Falls Count Anywhere match,” he said. “We were all over on the roof in Melrose Ballroom. We’re fighting over people; people are looking at us. I thought the cops were gonna get called. I got thrown into a plant. You just forget about how you’re feeling and get so engulfed into everything. But then after the match and the next couple of days, man, I was just still feeling it. I was like, ‘Maybe I’m just really sick. Maybe I just got a really bad bug or something.’ Then one thing led to another and then test after test after test, and then eventually they came up with the diagnosis which they did.”

On establishing a paradigm to get through the treatment: “So once they told me, I was just like, ‘Okay, when’s everything starting?’ There was no time to think. It’s just like, ‘I’ve been feeling really bad for a long time. It’s about time you just told me what it was.’ So, let’s get through that. Boom, here’s the diagnosis. ‘What do we gotta do? What’s the prognosis behind this? What are the steps needed to take—not so much to get me back to the ring—but how do I get back to just living a normal civilian life? How do I get back to just getting back into the gym and feeling like myself and looking like myself?’ All those things, the more important things. Then the wrestling will eventually follow. I knew that. The doctors were so assuring to me. They were like, ‘You’re gonna be fine. Everything’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be a process. This is not like something you just snap your finger and fix, but we’re gonna do what we need to do, and you’ll get back in the ring. Don’t worry.’ I never wavered from that. I always just [thought], ‘It’ll be there. Wrestling will be there. The industry’s not going away. The business isn’t going away. I may be going away for a little bit, and that’s okay because I will be back and I will beat this.’ That was my mindset the entire time. I would allow myself M.O.A.’s—moments of anxiety. Just moments, that’s it. I would have a moment of anxiety and then get back into it. ‘Cause it’s just stay on course and do what you have to do, and then you’ll get to where you want to be, and now here I am doing the Fightful interview with you, enjoying a nice Starbucks coffee and loving life.”

On the support he received from MLW: “Yeah, Court and I are actually really close. Me and Court probably got closer during the whole timeframe. We would talk wrestling, sure. But we would talk about life, talk about family, talk about the Yankees, talk about the Giants. We actually have a lot of commonality behind that, so we would just chat. He would just check up on me from time to time. I would always text him and say, ‘Hey, I saw this on MLW. I thought this looked really good.’ We would talk about the product, for sure. We’ve maintained a really good relationship. MLW was very good to me during the whole process, I guess you could say. Obviously there’s not much they could do. They can’t assist in the healing process, but they can make me feel more comfortable about it and they certainly did.”