Zilla Fatu appeared on a recent episode of Maven Huffman’s YouTube channel to review the final match of his father, Edward Fatu (former WWE star Umaga). During the video, Fatu detailed the events leading to his father’s passing in December 2009 and provided context regarding his father’s on-screen presentation.
Fatu described the day he was taken out of school shortly before his father’s death.
“I was at school, man, and when I was at school, usually you have something called early dismissal, and they get on the intercom and they will say your name and say hey, man, they have to come to the front office,” Fatu said. “I went to the office and I seen my uncle just with his head down. He didn’t tell me what happened or anything. He would just say, ‘Come on, let’s go. We have to go pick up your brothers.’ And at that time, my brothers was in high school on a varsity football team, and we went there, went to the high school and picked them up in the middle of their practice.”
Fatu continued, describing the arrival at the hospital.
“I remember just us going home, and he was like, ‘Man, pack a small bag.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, what is this for?’ He just said, ‘Shut up. Just pack. Let’s go.’ I got my stuff, got in the car, and I just remember going to sleep and waking up in the front of a hospital. And I didn’t think … anything of it. I just thought, okay, my dad’s probably hurt. And I went in there. As soon as we went in there… we went up to the floor, and all I remember just walking in the room, just he was connected to all these machines and blood coming out. Just all his whole body, just blood.”
According to Fatu, his father suffered two heart attacks.
“He had one heart attack at my house, and then after my mom was able to get him up, and get him to the hospital, he suffered another heart attack when he got there, like, literally, like, a couple minutes before we pulled up, and then he was unresponsive, but he was connected to the machine with just a lot of blood,” Fatu said. “The doctors came in there, and they was like, ‘Hey, man, we can keep him on the machine. We can keep giving him meds, but it’s just not gonna get any better.’ And then my mom was like, ‘Nah, nah … we’re gonna keep fighting. We’re gonna keep fighting.'”
Fatu recalled the final decision to remove life support.
“I remember the following day, after that, it was snowing, man, it was snowing. And I remember all my family members just huddling around my dad, you know, us saying our prayers, and my mom pulled us to the side, just the boys, just her sons, and was like, ‘Hey, like, it’s just gonna get worse and worse and worse. You know, what do we do?’ And I think that was the hardest decision, you know, yes, me and my family to make we didn’t know what to do, and someone had to, you know, pull the plug or whatever. And I [get] the call… And I just remember, because it never snowed in Houston, but it did that morning.”
During the segment, Fatu and Huffman watched Umaga’s match against Mr. Kennedy from the Hulkamania Tour in Australia from late 2009. Fatu noted that his father was wearing face paint on only half of his face, revealing a specific reason for that look.
“You probably pull up to this show late because he painted his face half. Usually when he does that, it’s rather he’s late or he doesn’t want to do it,” Fatu said. “If we get half a face paint, he didn’t have time, or he was late… Because usually he paints the whole face… And if he’s not on time, you see the half face… I remember that because Black Uce Shelton [Benjamin], he used to tell me that really, that’s why Shelton always, like, ‘Get to the venue earlier. Make sure you get there early.’ When I was a kid, I used to hear him talk about it like, ‘Oh, no, I don’t want to do the whole face paint. I don’t have time.'”
Huffman asked Fatu for his thoughts on WWE never acknowledging his father’s passing.
“I think you know in their minds, maybe it was because of the reasoning of him passing away, you know, maybe they didn’t want to… shed the light on that, but… I don’t know, but I just wish he was acknowledged, but it’s okay, because he’s getting acknowledged through my work,” Fatu said. “People already acknowledge him, and I think I’m content with that, and I’m okay with that, and I’m happy that I started wrestling… because it brought me closer to him. You know, I got to learn who my dad was through wrestling, through this, through meeting my dad’s old friends… He didn’t die. He lives through Me.”
If you use any of the quotes from this article, please credit Maven Huffman’s YouTube channel with an h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
