Remembering Eddie "Umaga" Fatu

This is probably going to be a very short column folks, and probably the worst of the lot so for those who enjoy good writing, you probably should look elsewhere.

As I type this word has come through on wwe.com and other wrestling news sites that Eddie Fatu aka Umaga has passed away, some speculate heart attack, others say something else, that's neither here nor there. It doesn't make him any less dead and unlike more recent deaths this one is going to hit hard and unfortunately leave a lot of questions about once again where does professional responsibility stop and personal resposibility start.

Eddie Fatu was a developmental player in the WWE for a long time before he finally got his shot, as part of the tag team "3 Minute Warning", one of my guiltiest pleasures of the time. Their matches weren't great, in fact most of the time they were barely what you'd call good. But through shrewd and clever writing and a role as then Raw general manager Eric Bischoff's enforcers 3 Minute Warning started to get over and started to get heat. Of course being the WWE, they fucked it all up but putting them into a fued with ambiguously gay duo Billy and Chuck (A fued that was set up when Billy and Chuck were going to get married and then at the last second revealed that they actually weren't gay. A move that REALLY delighted GLAAD, who sent them a gravy boat to celebrate their achievement. No word on whether GLAAD ever asked for the gravy boat to be returned or not) and then they pretty much burned out by the time the 2004 Royal Rumble came around and went back to development.

There Eddie waited for two years, until just after Wrestlemania 22 when he was given a new look, new gimmick and a manager to match. He was now "The Samoan Bulldozer UUUUUUUMAGA!" (Once again you have to say it like that or it doesn't work. It's a WWE thing please don't write me about it)

I have to admit, when I saw this gimmick I thought it was the most stupid idea on the planet, the idea of the samoan or islander savage had been done before in the late 80's all the way up to the mid 90's and every one of them failed in the end. Why? Well there's a number of reasons I sure the WWE would give you, like connection to the fans, not finding the right opponents, problems with their workrate but there's a more simple for why the "Samoan/Islander Savage" gimmick never got over.

BECAUSE IT FUCKING SUCKED!

Seriously let me run through some of the names here and I'll prove it. Afa, the original Wild Samoan, he did have a pretty good go of it for a while, I think he even fought Hogan at one point but he's far more well known as a trainer than he ever was as a wrestler. Haku? Probably the most famous of them all, he became King of the World Wrestling Federation (Sadly he did not come with crown as illustrated) and had a pretty good 4-5 year run in the WWF, then went to WCW and became THE MONSTER MENG! (Once again it's a wrestling thing). He definately was a pretty good mid to upper midcarder but it wasn't really a gimmick you could ever see on top. Fatu of the Headshrinkers is probably the other one I should bring up. Except when he was a Headshrinker noone cared, yet the WWE pushed him in various ways for 6 FUCKING YEARS before they found the right gimmick for him. A big fat guy who loved to dance, have fun.......and rub his ass in peoples faces.......And I only wish I was making that up.

So you can see it was with some trepidation that I saw this gimmick, yet Eddie pulled it off, and it was done for two very good reasons.

Reason 1: His Wrestling Style
Umaga didn't fight people, he ran them over like a bulldozer (Hence the name). For a while it brought back memories of another wrestler from another wrestling company, Goldberg. He'd hit you, hit you again, squash you in the corner and then finish you.
He also took one of the STUPIDEST finishers of all time, The Samoan Spike and made you believe it was crippling and hurting his opponent. For those who don't know what the Samoan Spike was and why I think it's stupid let me explain what it was. You pick the guy up, hold your thumb out like the Fonz.....and then jab the guy in the throat. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid. Yet with Umaga it seemed to work and he was a danger to anyone without having to do anything at all.

Reason 2: They never let him talk at all
As much as he was fighting well in the ring the reason Umaga got over in the early days wasn't because of Umaga, it was because of his manager. Armando Allejandro Estrrrrrrrrrrada! (That's three wrestling things for those playing the home game) Estrada made you believe he was the only one capable of controlling this savage and certainly Eddie played that part to perfection, researching tribal tattoos that he could add to his face, crying out Samoan war cries. Umaga never spoke one word of english and it got him over fast. He was like the WWE version of Ivan Drago, whatever he hit he destroyed.

He had a great run in WWE but behind the scenes Eddie Fatu fell into the same trap so many other wrestlers do, he got involved in drugs and truly believed he could control it when he couldn't. It would end up costing him everything as he was fired after refusing to go to rehab. I'm not going to speculate that this has anything to do with what happened, nows not the time. He had just made a tour of Australia with the Hulkamania tour and looked to getting his life back on track. Now I guess we'll never know.

Anothertragic loss for wrestling. Let's hope it's not just another statistic