I was going to look at ECW tag team specialist Roadkill on this “Wrestling Salvage Yard” but let’s look at another of my favorites from this period: Manu or Afa Jr. He became a 2000s favorite of mine after checking out the weekly WXW Rage web-show that aired on Afa the Wild Samoan’s World Xtreme Wrestling website.
Afa Jr and WXW
I’m sure the show aired locally in Allenton, Pennsylvania at the time. WXW was made up of Afa Sr’s students with names like Afa Jr, Tommy Suede, Mason Cage, Gene Snitsky, and Moondogs 2000 standing out. Those names stand out mainly because Afa Sr really featured them heavily every show.
After a while in the late 2000s, you stopped seeing Afa Jr on WXW shows. Part of this is because the tapings slowed up even though training was ongoing. The big monthly shows would get taped—I know the Sportsfest shows were up until 2005-2006.
WWE Run
By 2006, Afa Jr had entered WWE developmental. First was he in the oft-forgotten Deep South Wrestling camp where he formed the Samoan Fight Club with another hopeful in Sonny Siaki. Those two would move onto Florida Championship Wrestling pre-NXT.
Afa Jr would achieve some success in FCW, winning the Southern Heavyweight title from Davey Boy Smith Jr in the UK. His time in development ended with some time in OVW teaming with cousin Rosey. Towards the end of 2007, Afa Jr made his main roster debut as Mai Tai Anoa’i which wasn’t going to be around long.
After getting spanked by Duggan in his debut, he was suspended for flunking a Wellness Policy test. Let’s say it was a violation of the Wellness Policy. He was also bounced back to developmental because he didn’t return until September 2008.
He would now wrestle as Manu for the brief period he’d be in WWE. Manu was instantly slotted in with Randy Orton’s Legacy faction. Now, this stable went down like the Hindenburg.
I would say like the Titanic but that seemed slower. The Hindenburg had a spectacular ascent then crashed and burned dramatically.
The Legacy went from beefing with an on-the-rise Kofi Kingston and Cryme Tyme to racking up too many avoidable loses. Orton wasn’t having it, folks. He was not pleased with his team getting spanked all the time.
Everyone had an assessment match to see if they would stay on. Manu gets spanked while taking on the ECW Champion and is booted. He was turned face and looked poised to take revenge against The Legacy when that storyline was cut short.
After that, Manu was booted from WWE in February 2009. It was one of the faster runs in the company. He had an adequate amount of time in developmental before his main roster debut then got extra developmental. However, his second run didn’t impress at all, it seems.
Salvaging Manu in WWE
A general rule to booking should be “If you’ve got a bulky, heavyweight nimble Samoan on your roster: keep them.” You can always slot a nimble Samoan in somewhere. Afa Jr was powerful with a good build during his WWE run.
Now, I prefer his classic “Samoan savage” build that he’s rocking at almost 40-years-old but in WWE, the guy was in good WWE road schedule form. Also, the guy was—and still is—pretty damn nimble.
Watching him in the WXW days, Afa Jr was very athletic. Of course, he wasn’t even a senior in high school at the time. He’d since packed on more weight but could still get to the top turnbuckle quickly for a Frog Splash or something.
WWE could’ve bounced him back to development and observed him for what repacking works. Honestly, I think he would’ve ended up being the back-up savage for Amando Estrada with Umaga as the main attack savage.
That would work if there were tag team division plans for Umaga and they might actually click as a team. Singles prospects for Manu are extremely murky since there wasn’t much to his run in the first place.
You can’t see where or how far they were going with Manu.
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