Samu recently spoke with Lee Walker of Sportskeeda Wrestling and reflected on his career in the wrestling business. In the interview, Samu looked back at the highlights of his WWF run. Here are some highlights:
On jumping right in and defending the WWF Tag Team Championship:
Samu: “It was surreal. I mean, every match was my dream, but a lot of people’s dream. Even today, a lot of people want to get up to that height of the business and you know, it was kind of a thing where Sika broke his hip and he couldn’t participate anymore, so they were gonna try and get another Samoan and my dad didn’t want just a partner, it was his brother that we’re talking about. So he didn’t really want to tag with anybody unless it was me, who happened to look albino at the time. Andre had put in a good word for me and I got lucky to get a chance to step in there and the rest was on-the-job training.”
On facing Bob Backlund:
Samu: “Again, it was something that we all dream of, we all try to get up there and work with the top guys and hopefully represent good, especially with our family and not just the fans, we want to represent our family, our country and the fans.”
On teaming with Hulk Hogan:
Samu: “[I was] lucky, timing was right, I was able to be at the right place at the right time. I was just standing around in the hallway watching a big battle royal going in Madison Square Garden. I’m standing there and Vince goes, ‘Do you want to go in there?’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, hell yeah.’ He says, ‘Well, go ahead.’ And [Antonio] Inoki was in there. He ended up winning the thing, I ended up almost putting his eye out and I felt really bad about that. But after that match and him winning, I ended up going to Japan like very often and I learned a lot over there. And the IWGP tournament at that time was a tag team tournament and representing from Madison Square Garden was Hulk Hogan and myself and it was awesome.”
On returning to WWF:
Samu: “It was supposed to be [Yokozuna] and I were supposed to be The Headshrinkers and ended up, Yoko was doing Mexico at the time and got an infection in his leg, couldn’t make the debut, but Fatu was there and me and Fatu already knew each other like the back of our hand because we were in the [Samoan Swat Team] and everything. So we still knew that we had a package to offer, to put on the table, so we just asked him give us a chance and let us show you we can do it and if we do, we’ll talk business and then we did. Went out there, everything was good.”
On his run in ECW:
Samu: “It was fun, I mean, it was not too much wrestling skills involved. It was more, you know, cans and canes and crutches and handcuffs, but it was right down our alley. We don’t really care, you know. Paul [Heyman] was a good guy, always got along with Paul.”
The full interview is available here:
