No article about the backstage antics of pro wrestling hard men would be complete without a chapter devoted to Tonga Fifita. Wrestling as Meng in WCW and Haku in WWF, the native of the Polynesian island state of Tonga is still legitimately feared throughout the industry to this day. Even if the stories about him are a little exaggerated, theyre still terrifying. Bobby The Brain Heenan claimed that Fifita reached into a mans mouth during a bar brawl and broke off his bottom teeth. Rick Steiner and Ted Dibiase were witness to a brawl in which he took on multiple cops: Steiner swears he saw Meng maced and suck it into his lungs without missing a beat, while the Million Dollar Man claims that Fifita had his hands cuffed behind him and snapped the handcuffs, asking is that it? Jake The Snake Roberts once said, "If I had a gun and was sitting inside a tank with one shell left and Meng is 300 yards away, he's mine, right? Well the first thing I'm going to do is jump out of the tank and shoot myself because I don't want to wound that son of a bitch and have him pissed off at me." A story about him biting the nose off a man in a bar brawl appears to be true, while the one about him literally gouging the eye out of Jimmy Jack Funks head during a backstage fight may (thankfully) be a case of embellishment. Eric Bischoff and Kevin Sullivan have both gone on record as saying that the only reason that Meng kept his job in WCW for so long is that no one was brave enough to fire him. Even booker Sullivan, the devil himself, was terrified of Fifita. Once, he was forced to ask him to put someone over, and claims that when he saw Meng looked a little upset at the thought of doing a job, he immediately backed down and told him he didnt have to lose: it was the most scared hed ever been, and nothing had even happened. A smart man, this gave him the idea to use Fifita as his bargaining chip when having similar conversations with other recalcitrant wrestlers. No one acted the prima donna or refused to work as hed booked them to when Meng was standing behind him. It wasnt just in WCW, though: in WWF, Brutus The Barber Beefcake had complained about being potatoed by Haku in the ring, and when the office raised the issue with him, Fifita found Beefcake in the locker room and lifted him two foot in the air by his throat, choking him out. With any other backstage fight, all of the other boys would have held them back and broken it up, but again they were all too scared of the islander, and finally Hulk Hogan (one of the few men Haku respected) was called into the room to talk him down. Thats Tonga Fifita for you. Hes a human backstage fight, and a man for whom real life was more out there than any of the pro wrestling angles he worked.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
