One of the biggest family trees in the world of professional wrestling is the Samoan family. The Samoan bloodline has been dominating the wrestling world for decades. Most of the current generation of the Samoan bloodline is in WWE. One star who is not in WWE yet is former ROW World Heavyweight Champion Zilla Fatu. He is the son of the former WWE Intercontinental Champion, the late Umaga.
Recently, while speaking to Chris Van Vliet on his Insight podcast, Zilla Fatu shared some of his most fond memories of his father, Umaga. The Umaga character was one of the meanest and scariest characters in WWE. Fatu mentioned that his father was the complete opposite in real life., calling him “loving” and “caring.”
“Oh, man, just eating everything [laughs] and telling me, son, can you go grab that food right there? But yeah, I just remember him eating everything, and just him being a big teddy bear. Because I know everyone thinks that due to his character, he would be cocky, or arrogant, or just mean, but my dad was totally the opposite. My dad was very loving, caring. Obviously, he was very family-oriented. And, man, he was the glue.”
Umaga once showed up to Zilla Fatu’s Football game
Zilla Fatu also shared the special moment when his father surprised him one day by showing up at one of his Little League Football games. Umaga had spent the entire game watching his son play. After the game, the former Intercontinental Champion gave his son’s entire team his T-shirts and also signed autographs and took pictures with his son’s friends.
Zilla Fatu explained, “It was for football. I used to play for a little league football team, and one day, I didn’t know he was gonna pull up to the game, and he surprised me. I remember right before the football game, I was stretching, and he was like, ‘Hey, son, I got a little proposal for you.’ I was like, ‘What’s up, Dad?’ He was like, ‘Look, every touchdown you get, I give you $20.’ I said, really? He said, ‘Yes, I got you.’ I remember, after the game, scored five touchdowns the whole game. As soon as I saw him after the game, he already came with the money and gave it to me. But that wasn’t the most surprising.”
“After that, he brought his T-shirts, he brought eight by 10s for the team, and he just showed love, man. He was signing autographs, taking pictures with my friends. My friends knew who he was, but they never met him. They saw him on TV, and when they saw him there, they embraced it. And me, as a kid, having my friends go, ‘That’s your dad?’ So overwhelmed and overexcited. It hit home for me, and I was just so happy. And I remember after that, man, everyone at school was talking about it, and that made me feel good,” Fatu added.
What is your favorite match of Umaga’s?
