MLW recently conducted an interview with top superstar and former heavyweight champion Jacob Fatu about a wide range of topic, which include the Contra member revealing the moment he decided to get into the pro-wrestling business. Highlights from the interview are below.
Says he decided to become a wrestler after watching the Usos on TV while in jail:
I really didn’t grow up wanting to wrestle. I didn’t want to wrestle at all until the day I caught my case for the 211 when I was 18. I was locked down, went to jail for some crazy reason. Every dorm has a TV. It’s just so happened to be flipping through the channels right? Who comes on my brothers, The Usos, man Jimmy and Jey coming on and I will never forget it. They came out with Tamina [Snuka] and they was wrestling against Tyson Kidd, another former MLW Superstar Davey Boy Smith, and Natalya. Man, when I was 18, locked down in Sacramento County Jail. I was flipping through the channels and I seen my brothers and them. I think that’s kind of like where I made my mind up.
How he learned to do backflips when visiting Rikishi and the Usos:
Funny story was I used to go to my uncle Rikishi’s house every summer and back there they would have a wrestling ring set up. We had a trampoline so we’d move the trampoline in front of the wrestling ring and then right between the swimming pool and the wrestling ring. So the trampoline will be right there,” he recalled. “That’s actually where I learned how to do my backflips was at my uncle Rikishi’s house. From the wrestling ring, go dive out, bounce onto the trampoline into the pool.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)