WWE Monday Night Raw features Solo Sikoa at Bridgestone Arena

One week earlier than celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, World Wrestling Leisure’s “Monday Night time Uncooked” airs for the 1,545 time. The Jan. 2 program will emanate dwell from Decrease Broadway’s Bridgestone Area.

Although solely 5 years into his skilled wrestling profession, WWE celebrity Solo Sikoa — who will seem on this system — is a uncommon fourth-generation sports activities entertainer. Thus, count on him to be a key contributor, maybe towards foes like bearded, beloved Canadian brawler Kevin Owens.

“Being a [main roster] WWE celebrity is precisely what I am alleged to be,” says Sikoa.

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The 300-pound 29-year-old signed with the corporate in August 2021 and gained the North American Championship within the firm’s NXT expertise growth model in simply 11 months.

“Every thing is occurring so quick, however I characterize a legacy in [the professional wrestling] enterprise,” notes SIkoa (born Joseph Fatu).

Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar compete during the WWE SummerSlam at Nissasn Stadium in July.

Fifty years in the past, Sikoa’s great-uncles Afa and Sika Anoai grunted loudly and consumed unprepared uncooked fish whereas showing as iconic ’70s-era tv superstars the Wild Samoans for skilled wrestling organizations worldwide.

The tandem’s success as 19-time tag staff champions around the globe throughout their Corridor of Fame careers allowed for his or her kinfolk, together with nephews Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Yokozuna (with 12 WWE heavyweight championships between them) plus grapplers Jamal, Rikishi, Samu and Umaga, to attain thriving sports activities leisure careers.

Presently, WWE is making ready for its Wrestlemania preview occasion, the Royal Rumble, scheduled for Jan. 28 at San Antonio’s Alamodome. The corporate’s Uncooked and WWE unified heavyweight and tag staff champions — the “Tribal Chief” and “Head of the Desk” Roman Reigns and the Uso brothers (Jey and Jimmy) — are three-fifths of the “Bloodline” collective of grapplers, unified by their relation to the beforehand talked about Anoai household and their extraordinary confidence of their wrestling talents.

If the trio retains their championships via Royal Rumble 2023, they are going to have been champions for a mixed 1,428 days between them (860 days for Reigns, 568 for the Usos).

Sikoa thought his time in NXT could be ample sufficient to assist him outline his success exterior of his groundbreaking kinfolk.

Nevertheless, the extent of what he describes as “amazingly devoted and extremely motivational laborious work” has yielded championship reigns that he believes to be one of many best athletic accomplishments — no matter sport — of all time.

Passionately pushed by a need to “maintain his personal weight” on the roster, Sikoa on display portrays the street-tough bodyguard who protects his kinfolk’ championship reigns anyplace, worldwide, at any price.

At WWE’s September Conflict on the Citadel occasion in Cardiff, Wales, he interfered as Scottish brawler Drew McIntyre was mere seconds away from defeating Reigns. In November on the WWE Crown Jewel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, he helped his older cousin, Reigns, defeat social media influencer Logan Paul by going through down his fellow influencer and brother, Jake, an expert boxer.

“There’s nothing just like the emotion and power of a dwell WWE crowd,” says Sikoa. “62,000 folks have been shocked to see me,” he says about his principal roster debut in Wales.

The shock of Sikoa’s debut has worn off. He is repeatedly going through off with a worldwide who’s-who {of professional} wrestling veterans. These embrace McIntryre, brutish Austrian grappler Gunther, and Scottish toughman and multiple-time champion Sheamus.

He is had quite a lot of in-ring victories of late. Key to this success is his use of top-rope diving splashes, bruising, hip-led physique assaults and wildly swinging a taped thumb in a spiking movement to assault the house between an opponent’s chest and Adam’s apple.

The maneuvers are an homage to his uncle, Edward “Umaga” Fatu. After a 25-year profession that noticed Fatu contend for the WWE championship on many events, he unexpectedly handed away in 2009.

In the end, one among Sikoa’s skilled objectives is to imitate Fatu’s stage of explosive quickness whereas additionally recalling his well-respected in-ring moments.

Sikoa’s accelerated skilled growth was aided by others, too.

Two members of his Bloodline secure — the group’s on-screen supervisor and advocate Paul Heyman and woebegone but boastful hanger-on Sami Zayn — have practically 60 years {of professional} wrestling expertise between them. Heyman’s skilled profession dates again to 1986, and he is labored on-screen alongside three generations of Sikoa’s kinfolk. As for Zayn, he is one of the crucial charismatic entertainers at firm.

“Man, working with Paul Heyman is not ‘like’ working with my uncle, he principally ‘is’ my uncle,” Sikoa jokes with sincere respect in his voice. “They name [Heyman] ‘the sensible man’ on TV for a purpose. He is guided all of my kinfolk — within the ring and behind the scenes — to unimaginable success. So having him in my nook makes my adjustment to every little thing I am coping with now a lot simpler.”

So far as what Sikoa has gained because the straight man to Zayn’s whimsical performances of late, he says that levity accentuates the presentation of the Bloodline as characters who blur the traces between sports activities leisure and aggressive athletics in an unprecedented method.

“We won’t all the time be severe,” Sikoa says, “and Sami’s naturally humorous. However the best way we’re [violently] dealing with enterprise within the ring is not all the time enjoyable to observe. So it lets the gang have an excellent time — typically at my expense.”

Requested to summarize what his spectacular studying curve and generational expertise might mix to create briefly order, Sikoa presents a direct response.

“I wish to create pleasure as a principal event-level fighter,” he says. “Already, the WWE fanbase is studying that I will not be denied attaining that purpose. As a fourth-generation celebrity, I am simply doing precisely what I used to be born to do.”

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