Adam Bueller On Being HIV Positive And Reveals No Promoter Required Him To Get Blood Tested

Adam Bueller spent recent years competing in brutal deathmatches for promotions like Independent Wrestling Association Mid-South and Resistance Pro Wrestling. He took the time to speak with Wiggy Wigowski about the moment he discovered he was HIV-positive. Bueller also went into detail about how he has personally handled his diagnosis as he looks toward the future.

"I noticed a very large growth in my armpit that got to be probably about the size of a baseball," Bueller began. "It wasn't going away on it's own. Went and got it checked out, they told me that I had Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which is cancer essentially in the immune system. So, I had to pretty much immediately undergo treatment for that. That, for obvious reasons, kept me out of wrestling for a long time. Right as things were starting to look good, I got through chemo and now I was moving on to radiation, my white blood cell count wasn't getting to where it was supposed to."

One final series of tests revealed that he was actually HIV-positive. For Bueller, the most devastating part of this information was realizing that his career in wrestling was coming to an end.

"So, they couldn't continue radiation because my body couldn't handle it, and then I started getting short of breath almost to the point where I couldn't breathe," Bueller continued. "I could barely move around and it just got worse, and worse, and worse...they tested me for a lung infection at first, and then they found out through the testing that, 'Hey, you have pneumonia.' I mean, that explains some of it, but then they said, 'Just so you know, the type of pneumonia that you have is commonly associated with this other thing that we're going to test you for now.

The next day, they came up and they told me officially that I was - in addition to having pneumonia, in addition to having cancer - that I am also HIV-positive. So, that was in the mid-December...you would think I'd be bummed out about that but that's my favorite thing about being HIV-positive, is getting to do that [South Park] joke. So, when I found out, my first thought was, 'Thank God this isn't the 90's anymore,' first of all. And second of all, 'Oh my God, I can't wrestle now. That's it, I'm done now.'"

 Bueller revealed that he never once was required to submit a blood test to the companies he has worked for. Furthermore, Bueller stated that the proposition of providing a blood test to compete was never even brought up to him during his time competing.

"I have never given anyone a record of a blood test. Ever, at all, ever - no promoter has ever gotten blood test results from me. And I know that there are places where it's like, 'Oh, we make sure that we blood test everyone. We make sure that they don't wrestle in that type of environment if we can't prove their blood is clean.' I've never even so much have been asked to submit a blood test. Like, it wasn't one of those, 'Hey, we need a blood test from you. Oh, shoot, there's not enough time? Oh, I'm sure you're fine. Anyway, nevermind.' No one ever even asked me for [my blood test]. But then again, people who may not know me personally, ironically enough, I'm just as at risk for having something in me as you would think that I would, which is very minimal. I'm about as nerdy as they get, I'm not social, I don't do drugs, so really, what could I have? So maybe it wasn't a concern."