On the “No-Contest Wrestling” podcast, WWE Superstar Jey Uso shared a dramatic, previously untold story about how his late uncle, Edward Fatu, famously known as Umaga, forcibly jumpstarted his and his twin brother Jimmy Uso’s wrestling careers.
Jey recalled working a 9-to-5 office furniture job alongside Roman Reigns after college, feeling they had untapped potential. He and Jimmy would frequent a local bar after work in Pensacola, Florida. One night, Umaga unexpectedly confronted them there. “We over there, chilling, and I just, I just feel like a big hand, just like, slap my shoulder. Boom,” Jey recounted. “I turn around like, that’s my uncle in the middle of us. Like, just pissed off, right?… First off, I’m like, What the What you doing here?”
Umaga, who had driven from Houston, delivered a scathing promo. “He was just laying in on us,” Jey said. “[He said] ‘Y’all mother-, like, so like… y’all MF is getting fat, you know, y’all over here wasting… ain’t doing shit… Y’all want to, y’all want to come make a good living. Or what?'” Umaga issued an ultimatum: “He’s like, ‘Because this is the last time I’m ever coming back to Pensacola… If y’all don’t leave with me tonight, like, I ain’t, I’m not reaching my hand no more.'”
The demand was immediate action. “He’s like, ‘Call your boss.’ Call my boss at night,” Jey remembered. The boss, ironically, was Roman Reigns’ sister. Jey rushed home, “I go to my apartment. I pack, I pack one bag… Had to tell my lady at the time we gotta like, I’m gone. We gotta go… My brother was my was my neighbor. Same thing with him.” They left money for their families and embarked on a nine-hour drive to Houston with Umaga that same night. “I got evicted at that out that, out that apartment, you know? Yeah, one bag goes one and done,” Jey revealed.
This intervention led them directly into training in Houston alongside established stars. “And then we lock in with Booker [T]. You feel me. But by this time, it was, I’m training. We’re training every day. Charlie Haas, Shelton Benjamin, Carlito… Rey Mysterio, so we around this,” Jey said, describing the eye-opening experience. “I’m glad he just picked us up by the collar, though, and drug our ass out of there, but we ain’t look back since.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit No Contest Wrestling Podcast with O’Shea Jackson with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
