My days in the AWA were a lot of fun but at times confusing. I was young in the business but felt my knowledge of booking stuff was pretty good. I had been trained by Afa “The Wild Samoan #1” Anoai and was very comfortable with what I was doing. In the match that I was scheduled to referee between Larry Zbyszko and Nick Bockwinkel the finish was one of the worst that I had ever heard. There was a big angle being run wherein former pro boxer Scott LeDoux was being used as a trouble shooting referee. He had an ongoing issue with Larry Zbyszko and was barred from refereeing his matches.
I was assigned to referee the match but was never actually going to referee the match. The idea was that I would be arguing with Larry Zbyszko and be up against the ropes. When Nick hit the ring he would nail Larry who would hit me and I would go outside the ring and be “out cold”. At that point Scott LeDoux would come down after being assigned under an emergency need by the Nevada Athletic Commission. I was one of only two referees in the building that night myself and Scott LeDoux. So, by default, when they carried me to the back he was it.
The finish would see Nick doing something behind the referees back; hit Larry with a roll of coins. In this case Zbyszko was “out cold” Nick covered him and got the win. He then would blatantly dump all the coins all over Larry. At that point LeDoux would see the coins and ask Nick if he hit Larry with the coins. When Nick responds "yes", Scott would say "no you misunderstood Nick". I asked "did you hit Larry with a roll of coins?" And he repeats "yes I did". At that point the announcer says "Nick Bockwinkel says that he hit Larry Zbyszko with a roll of coins but referee Scott LeDoux says he didn’t see it so Nick Bockwinkel is the winner."
At the meeting Larry said "listen there has to be some sort of as semblance of the rules" so we changed the plan. After the angle plays out I would come down and tell Scott that I saw it from the back and it was actually my match anyway. Scott would argue a little longer and finally I would say "Scott please be reasonable". He would eventually say ok and we would reverse the decision. Well, somehow. I got in the position to be the one to advise Greg Gagne of the change. He immediately got on the phone and called Verne who insisted we keep the finish the same as originally planned. I will never forget the situation and will never agree with it.
I was in a Golden Corral restaurant in the early nineties in Concord, N.C., standing next to a guy in line. He was a very unique looking guy. It took me a moment to figure out that it was Exotic Adrian Street. We had a brief chat he was a decent enough guy and yes Miss Linda was with him. I never saw him again until I booked him for WrestleReunion in Tampa, Fl. He was a pleasure to work with and I found him to be a stand up guy that didn’t have to be sought out to meet his commitments.
I grew up in the business with several of Afa and Sika’s relatives. I hung out with The Tonga Kid (Sam Fatu), Rikishi (Solafa Fatu), The Great Samu (Sam Anoai), and Yokozuna (Rodney Anoai). These were all very talented guys and pure naturals in the ring. In the eighties, the Tonga Kid was selling out everywhere with Roddy Piper after the famous Jimmy Snuka/ Roddy Piper coconut angle. I had not yet met Sam Anoai. At the same time Sika had been injured at the Capitol Center and would not be able to compete for several weeks. I believe that Vince had come to Afa and asked him to tag with Don Muraco since he was an island guy. Afa told Vince "no". He said he would only tag with his brother or his son. Well, at this point in time, no one even knew that Afa had a son who was working underneath in Texas. I am sure that Afa could have and would have teamed with Captain Lou Albano, but this was a long term thing and there was only so much that you could get out of teaming with Captain Lou.
I remember calling Afa’s hotel room in NYC and what I thought was a strange voice answered. I asked "who is this" he said "it’s Sam". I thought that it was Sam Fatu, the Tonga Kid, so I told him to tell Afa I had arrived. Later I found out that it was Afa’s son who was brought in to start tagging with Afa. I later met him downstairs at the Garden and we became friends right away.
Sam started out a little green, of course, as was to be expected. But he was a quick learner and so so talented. He made a good name for himself but was a little wild, and perhaps, made some ill-advised decisions. He could have gone a lot further in the business as a baby face or a heel. He went very far as it was and eventually became a WWF Tag Team Champion. I remember thinking many times "if I could have had Sam’s abilities there would have been no stopping me". I will talk about him more in later articles. I am glad to say that we are still friends to this day. I have also had the opportunity to tag team with Sam, Matt and Lloyd Anoai in my hometown of Yonkers, N.Y.
The picture of this article is from the Yokozuna Memorial Show. On my right is Ecki Fatu (Umaga) brother of Rikishi and The Tonga Kid and on my left is Matt Anoai (Rosey of WWE) son of Wild Samoan #2 Sika.
This has been a piece of my mind
