The guys at the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling podcast have a new interview out, and this time it’s with Matt Anoa’i, best known for his run in WWE as Rosey. In the interview, he discusses a wide range of topics, including his brother, Roman Reigns, and we’ve got some quotes for you to check out:
On the large quantity of big name star pro wrestlers that the Anoa’t family has produced:
The fact my family has grown as big as it has is actually extraordinary in itself. To be honest with you, I really don’t think there is going to be another family that’s going to top the amount of professional wrestlers in WWE that’s associated or tied into the same last name. We’ve produced a lot of family members going into WWE. Moving forward with that, it’s not going to slow down. We’ve got young bucks on the rise as we speak and lookout because they will make it one day. It’s got absolutely nothing to do with the Anoa’i family name, the Fatu family name it’s got everything to do with for some reason we’ve got a killer drive for this business and whoever is on the way up that’s their goal.
Did he expect his brother, Roman Reigns, to have so much success so soon and develop as a performer as quickly as he did?
I knew he was going to do something like that with whatever he did. I’m not trying to say anything that is stereotypical, that’s just his life. That’s just the way he’s been watching him grow up. It was going to happen regardless of whether it was in football or being the superstar at WalMart he’s just got “that” and it’s just the way it’s always been with him. It didn’t surprise me but the quickness of everything did because time does fly by and now that I look at it three or four years ago he was just getting into this business and now he’s sitting on top of the wrestling world.
Career advice from his father, Sika of the Wild Samoans:
He basically said exactly this: “Son, if you want it, go out and get it. Nobody is going to come knocking on your door to give it to you so get your ass out there and get it.” So I listened and I started down in New Orleans. I worked my way around the country. I went down to Puerto Rico and worked my way around there and all the way to actually signing a WWE contract in 96.
Getting trained by his Uncle Afa:
My Dad has a certain way of teaching things and my Uncle has a certain way of teaching things and everyone has a different way of teaching. They might be brothers but they have different styles and I was just lucky enough to grab a bunch of different little things from everybody. Having Samu as a mentor and one of my cousins, he worked pretty close with me and just getting all this information from several of my family members it made a very big impact at a very young age.
His brief runs in WWE and ECW with Samu as The Samoan Gangsta Party in the mid-’90s:
I remember a little bit. I ain’t going to lie to you I was f*cked up pretty good through those days so there was a lot of times where I forgot what happened the night before and was just happy I was waking up in a hotel. I don’t exactly know who’s hotel, but it was somebody’s. At that point in time I did like what ECW was dishing out and it was fun to walk into a locker room and smell blood and see a little bit more of an old school type of thing. It brought me back to when I was between like 8 and 15 years old running the roads with my cousin The Tonga Kid down in the Gulf Coast area.
It kept it un-corporate for a little while. Everyone knew it was all moving to be corporate and business attitudes but ECW was a nice shot of having a lot of fun. With WWE, there were some things that happened that I really didn’t understand since I was still relatively new to the business and specifically with WWE. I let my cousin handle his business with Vince and my cousin just called me up and said we are going to move on from here so I just packed my bag and said alright lets go. I told them that I will be back and they said they know I will and it just pushed it of a little bit longer but it was none of my business at the time on why we didn’t stay very long.
Teaming with Umaga/Jamal/Eddie “Eki” Fatu as 3 Minute Warning:
I was very comfortable with it and I know he was too. It seemed to fit pretty well that we were both around the same size and both had the same understanding of how we wanted to work our matches and how we wanted the wrestling world to view us. We seemed to mesh pretty good but we are family too so that didn’t mean that we didn’t have our fair share of the down part of being around each other for more than we were our own families, but for the most part it was just something that clicked and it turned out that it worked out pretty good and of course when we split we were still pretty much okay on the back end of that. My cousin is very missed and I miss him every day and I’ve got a picture of him on my end table right next to my bed and I talk to him every day. He was a hell of a guy and I love him very much.
Looking back at 3 Minute Warning’s debut:
We didn’t have time to soak it in. We didn’t know we were doing that until the day of the show. Arnie came up to us and gave us some money and said we’ve got to go to the mall and get some clothes and that we were starting that night. We didn’t know what we were going to get and he said “Hip-Hop” clothes. So hell-yeah, we kind of bypassed the mall and found a spot in the worst part of town where we knew we could pick some sh*t up and I think we bought it in an Indian convenience store and I don’t know why but for some reason in the ghetto you can always find 6XL shirts in “Hip-Hop” fashion.
In the full interview, Anoa’I also talks about his team with the Hurricane, being a tag team champion, the controversial {HLA” segment, and more.