In recent months, Rikishi has been somewhat critical of the booking of his son Jey Uso. Jey recently won the WWE Intercontinental Title from Bron Breakker. On the latest “Off The Top” podcast, talked about how proud he is of his son after winning the first singles title of his career.
Rikishi said, “Besides Jey’s sons, I’m probably the number one fan of Jey right now. I’ve always been. I’m happy. I’m proud. I’m proud to be his pops. I’m proud that the fans are proud. You know, I don’t know who was more excited if I was or the fans, because when I got back to the room and got a chance, I seen this in Boston, and when I got back, man, and just seen the reaction of the fans, and, you know, the reaction of my boy, man, if you think about it, that was a long road. What is it like 15 years or 14 years? You know, You dominate the tag team division, and then you finally break off into a single competition not knowing which way is it going to go, but you see it, the fan favorite. I mean, you see the entrance. You see everything about the character of Jey. For me, Jey is not a character. That is really that kid. That kid is just a lovable kid like that. Talk to everybody. He’s not a liability. He’s not one of those troublemakers. He’s a company man. He knows that. He’s a good role model. So, you know, he’s one of those kids as far as for corporate, as far as being that community person to be able to be a role model to kids in the community, or even parents in the community. I mean, he’s that kid. He’s been through some stuff. Being a being a son of a wrestler, and being on the road, you see a lot of stuff, man. You can either go left or go right. So all his career, at the end of the day, the choices that they make are their choices and he’s made the right choices all the way through and you’re looking at your new Intercontinental champion.”
Rikishi on his relationship with Vince McMahon:
“We’ve always been good. I’ve been there for 16 years or so. That’s a long time. I was a young kid. I did the independent circuit for a minute, like four or five years or so, and then finally, you know, one and a half years or two years with WCW, and then the rest of my career was WWF, WWE. So I can’t knock anything as far as my relationship with this man. I mean, you’re talking to a guy that went through five different characters. One character didn’t work. I mean, the first one we came through with the Headshrinker. It was a banger, but as soon as the Headshrinker kind of just dissolved, now you’re looking for something for Junior Fatu now. He could have got rid of me, but I wasn’t that guy that was a liability. My mentality was to keep that paycheck coming. That was the most realistic thing to me was to keep that paycheck coming because I had to take care of my family. I don’t care what type of character because I was always taught whatever type of character that comes, you’re good enough to make that character come to life. So from there to, you know, make a difference, to The Sultan, to the SST revised, and then came back with Haku. Then finally years later, boom, here comes Rikishi, so the man gave me multiple opportunities to be able to do what I’m doing and provide for my family. So the relationship, nothing ever bad. I idolized Vince sometimes because I saw the scheduling of this guy,and I was told, man, this guy only sleeps three hours a day back in the day in the Attitude Era. So he comes, boom, right after TV, they’re gone, jumping onto that black jet of his and and on to the next town, and he doesn’t sleep. To be able to run a company like that, the vision this man had, and just really see it come to reality, man, you got to give his ups. You got to give him his props.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Rikishi Fatu Off The Top with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
