Details Revealed Regarding Tama Tonga Joining WWE
Tama Tonga made his WWE debut on SmackDown after being pursued by the company for several years.
During an explosive segment on WWE SmackDown from Detroit, Hall of Famer Paul Heyman was in the ring with The Bloodline’s Solo Sikoa & Jimmy Uso.
Heyman spoke on behalf of “The Tribal Chief” Roman Reigns by saying that Reigns had no excuses for his WrestleMania WWE Title match loss to Cody Rhodes. Heyman tried to say more about Roman Reigns, but Solo Sikoa stared at Heyman and said that winning & losing matters. Solo said there are consequences for losing and consequences need change.
At that point, Solo hugged his brother Jimmy, who lost to his twin brother Jey Uso at WrestleMania. Solo told Jimmy he loved him, but that’s also when Tama Tonga made his WWE debut by attacking Jimmy from behind. The announcers Corey Graves & Wade Barrett mentioned that Tonga was the son of WWE Hall of Famer Haku/Meng. Solo went on to beat up Jimmy with the Samoan Spike multiple times and a running hip attack into a chair that was against Jimmy’s head. Jimmy was taken out on a stretcher.
It appeared as though Paul Heyman was in the dark about Solo’s plans because he was shouting that this wasn’t what Reigns wanted. When Heyman tried to call Reigns, Solo took the phone and stomped on it.
Later in the show, Tonga went up to Heyman backstage and said: “By orders of The Tribal Chief.” Whether that meant that Tonga got his orders from Solo or somebody else is not known.
In late February, it was reported that WWE had signed former NJPW wrestler Tama Tonga. According to Fightful Select, Tonga’s WWE debut was expected over the last few months.
Fightful also reported that recently signed Jacob Fatu, who is a nephew of Rikishi and cousin of The Usos/Solo Sikoa, was backstage at WrestleMania. An idea that has been floated around internally is to have Jacob team with Tama since Tama’s father Haku teamed with Jacob’s father The Tonga Kid as The Islanders tag team in the 1980s.
Was AEW Interested In Signing Tama Tonga?
The Fightful story noted that Tonga was targeted by WWE since they had an interest in him back in 2016 when they signed AJ Styles, Karl Anderson, Luke Gallows and Shinsuke Nakamura after their NJPW deals expired. However, Tonga chose to stay in NJPW to work with his brothers Hikuleo and Tonga Loa.
There was previous interest in Tama Tonga joining WWE in 2023, but that was held up due to an unofficial hiring freeze due to Vince McMahon forcing his way back into the company as well as the sale of Endeavor buying WWE.
As for AEW, Fightful didn’t know if All Elite Wrestling had an interest in signing Tonga. It was considered by many people that it was a “foregone conclusion” that he would be going to WWE due to his extended family being there.