The Secret WWE History Of The Bloodline

Not to define one of the most underrated athletes in WWE history by his size from the off, but the years in which Yokozuna’s physical stature grew alongside his status within the market leader were a sight to behold.

When Rodney Anoa’i debuted on WWE television in late 1992 as Mr Fuji’s newest Japanese discovery and an apparent sumo sensation, the need to highlight that he was in fact samoan was replaced by a desire to put over just how impressive and believably cast he was in the role. Once again, a samoan wrestler was being reduced to a stereotype, but in one of those only-in-wrestling moments, it wasn’t even the traditional one anymore.

Years later and with just about every bit of archive footage purposed and repurposed to an almost unusable point, WWE began a process of leafing through the rest of the tape library for dark main events, taped tryouts and any other rarities they could polish up and release to hardcores that had always known but never seen footage that sounded too weird to be true.

A Madison Square Garden triple threat match between The Undertaker, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels just weeks out from Montreal? Razor Ramon in long tights? The Toxic Turtles?! It was all appearing. In line with these once-thought-impossible content drops, the Hart Vs Tom Magee tape emerged in the back of a wardrobe and an accompanying documentary was broadcast alongside it to explain the lore and value to those that had no idea why - for 30+ years - a match had existed that briefly convinced Vince McMahon to replace Hulk Hogan as his top draw as early as 1986.

Alongside these gems emerged footage of Kokina - Anoa’i’s working name before he signed for WWE - going through the motions ahead of a block television taping around six months before Yokozuna emerged fully formed on the October 31st edition of Superstars. He wore many of the awesome samaon traits - a meaty frame that looked tough to compete against alongside with an engine that could run longer and harder than anybody else’s. What he was not, until he was, was sumo-sized.

This all changed when Yokozuna was introduced, and - like many others during a commercially challenging 1992 - his impact was immediate by necessity. The gasps in the buildings when he flattened feckless idiots into corners with his charging splash were audible, and the Banzai Drop was the exact finisher to give to a man of his size.

The racially problematic connotations were soon to bite WWE, but in the short term, every aspect of the presentation was being viewed internally as a home run, and externally, people were leaning in for a closer look. He debuted on pay-per-view at the 1992 Survivor Series, squashing Virgil on a show that had also seen family members The Headshrinkers make similar noise in the tag division.

In their case, it took commentators doubling down on their inherent threat after a win, but in Yoko’s case, his latest victim spoke longest and loudest about WWE’s literal biggest new threat. The late and often-wonderful Virgil couldn’t nail the pronunciation of “Yokozuna” but he nailed everything else about his pained post-match promo following a loss to the big man. Cutting most of it horizontal on a locker room bench after being put through the ringer, he went as far as to warn WWE Champion Bret Hart that even he couldn’t stop of the wrath of Fuji’s new monster.

The company were showing and telling with the gimmick, and as announcers continued to marvel at his squash wins, a stipulation crept into the promotion of the 1993 Royal Rumble that was about to change Rodney Anoai’s life.

Entering its sixth year as a promoted attraction and fifth on pay-per-view, that year’s Royal Rumble stood a good chance of being the least-bought in the show’s history as the second supercard in a row not to feature either Hulk Hogan or the Ultimate Warrior or, by then, a raft of the stars that had defined WWE’s “Big Four” by then. WrestleMania VIII marked the end of that specific era, and while the likes of Randy Savage and Mr Perfect were still in prominent spots, the turnover had been huge enough to force the company to go with Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels in a big way.

WWE was under scrutiny for what would later morph into steroid distribution charges and the 1994 trial of Vince McMahon, and had barely managed to get past appalling historic abuse allegations that had come to light in parallel with the government’s drug investigation. “Smaller” guys (Michaels and Hart, even on sight alone, were not remotely diminutive figures) that could wrestle were in, and the wrestlers with ginormous muscular physiques started suddenly started to shrink or outright disappear from television completely. Vince McMahon always liked what he liked though, and he had a steadfast belief that bigger was always better between his ropes. Yokozuna subsequently squared a difficult circle for him.

He was absolutely massive but he passed airport tests in public and drug tests behind the scenes. He was getting rocket-strapped, and right around the time he was being called the outright favourite for the Rumble, WWE revealed that for the first time, the winner would receive a golden ticket to the main event of WrestleMania IX. Virgil was prescient in warning ‘The Hitman’ - if Hart managed to make it to the ‘Show Of Shows’ still proudly holding gold, there looked a good chance that he’d have to come up against WWE’s biggest danger.

That proved truer than anybody could have forecast, but more on that presently. Yoko won the Rumble, and the booking couldn’t have done more with the limitations of the field to get him over in the body of the match too. He took out Earthquake just to make it explicitly clear that he was the new bull of the woods.

He was kept far away from The Undertaker in the knowledge that that programme was rainy day stuff, and there could well be several of them ahead. And perhaps most notably, he was given the relatively fresh Randy Savage to dominate and eliminate in a closing stretch that made the Macho Man look overwhelmed to the point of stupidity before being eliminated by virtue of a pinball attempt (!) kickout. He was in every sense unstoppable, and a big problem for the ‘Excellence Of Execution’ to solve…after the company had finished navigating yet more scandal.

With the match as good as set thanks to Hart seeing off Razor Ramon at the Rumble, WWE elected to turn the heat up on Yokozuna. Though Hart was Canadian, Vince McMahon liked what he liked, and promoting a xenophobic heel was safe ground when the tectonic plates beneath his organisation seemed to constantly shift. The gimmick was to pivot hard into an anti-American stance - something Mr Fuji had only ever really espoused while managing The Orient Express.

The rhetoric was dated and not even in keeping with any global social unrest McMahon had typically had no problem promoting in the past, but Fuji and his “Japanese” monster were now interested in more than just dominating the World Wrestling Federation and all its babyface stars. They wanted to crush America too. Jim Duggan, one of the last patriotic holdovers from the bygone era wanted to do something about it, but Yokozuna’s aura was so well established and worth protecting at this point that the two didn’t even build a match on television.

It was merely a “Knockdown Challenge” on account of the fact that the Number One Contender couldn’t even be floored in singles competition, and while Duggan was more than up for knocking down Yokozuna, he was mainly in it to stop his opponent knocking down the good old US of A.

A nervous fire simmered in the cautious opening stages, but appeared to be extinguished when - after several failed attempts - Hacksaw achieved the impossible and sent Yoko tumbling to the mat. The live crowd went berserk, subjectively suggesting that people were buying into the entire package, but the joy was short-lived as the Number One Contender moved to assuage his embarrassment.

Cutting short the flag-waving celebrations, Yokozuna blinded Duggan with a bucketload of “ceremonial salt” then laid him out with a suplex and leg drop. From there, the blinded and unconscious Duggan was left for dead with four Banzai Drops, including a final one in which the American flag was draped over lifeless body. And if that’s sounds dramatic, it’s nothing compared to Vince McMahon’s appalled commentary and the sight of Uncle Sam being peeled back to reveal the former King of the company bleeding from the mouth.

On the surface, it couldn’t have been more effective. What emerged, no matter how dated it might have been, was the shared understanding that Yokozuna hated America, that his finisher was the deadliest killshot in the company, and he wasn’t afraid to use the salt as a shortcut should anybody ever get close to putting him away.

These were all things that factored into the (original) main event of WrestleMania IX, right down to Hart being blinded by Fuji’s salt when he finally trapped Yoko’s monstrous legs in the Sharpshooter. The foreshadowing was for naught when Hulk Hogan trampled over both of them just moments later, but they were lucky to get there with the story still in one piece - complaints about both the representation of Japanese people and the desecration of the American flag moved some networks to heavily edit or remove elements of the angle, unaware that this was only the beginning of the content that would define WWE’s main event scene for the next 12 months.

Scraping through the protests, WWE repurposed the bit slightly with a more direct goal in mind, having Yoko ram a table into Bret Hart’s ribs during a contract signing as a shortcut to flattening him too. Crucially, the cameras stuck around to find ‘The Hitman’ gamely getting back to his feet, but never had a babyface Champion looked in such jeopardy going into the biggest event of the year.

The concern was well-founded, and after Mr Fuji’s aforementioned chicanery, Bret was left painfully squinting towards the Nevada sky…for less than a minute before Hulk Hogan strolled out and squashed the brand new Champion after he idiotically accepted an impromptu challenge there and then.

McMahon had pressed the red and yellow panic button at possibly the worst time, completely hijacking his newest babyface and heel in service of Hogan’s ego and whatever remained of his drawing power. That, thankfully wasn’t enough to maintain their fraying relationship, and while Hart should have been the guy to win the belt back, Hogan was too shrewd to pass the torch to his obvious replacement. Yokozuna got the nod instead, and with it a rare pinfall victory over ‘The Hulkster’ at King Of The Ring 1993.

Though political games might have been at the heart of Hogan’s decision to lose to the sumo heel (and perhaps the mental gymnastics of somehow getting a win back down the line), the victory was shockingly definitive save for a cheating camera man shooting fire in the Champion’s face. Yokozuna kicked out of the leg drop, pinned Hogan with one of his own, then dragged him to the corner for a post-match Banzai Drop as the commentators spoke candidly about the possible death of Hulkamania. Had the industry at large been hotter, this would have been a shockwave.

As it was, the scene played as an effective but inevitable case of a dated legend being put out to pasture once and for all. On the same show, Bret Hart worked three times in three totally different matches to win the titular tournament and kickstart a series with Jerry Lawler that was to keep him busy until Royal Rumble season. In the absence of a top babyface, Yokozuna sensationally challenged the entirety of the United States Of America.

The July 4th 1993 Stars & Stripes Yokozuna Bodyslam Challenge is a textbook example of how dynamic WWE - and indeed the genre of pro wrestling - could be even when things had never been worse for the market leader commercially. Set to the gorgeous sunshine of New York City (so hot it was heating the canvas up and burning Yokozuna’s feet the longer he stayed out there), a host of wrestlers and sports stars lined up to try and slam Yokozuna.

There was the implication that a title shot might beckon for the winner but this was no Royal Rumble or Money In The Bank scenario. This was merely athletes lining up for the good of Uncle Sam goddamn it, with the promotion and presentation so wildly effective that it honestly felt as though the new WWE Champion was crushing the spirit of an entire nation every time somebody failed to lift him off the ground.

This had been another excellent offshoot of the Hogan match; Hulk always got his opponents up and over for the slam, no matter how big they were or how impossible the task appeared. Andre The Giant fell to the mat at WrestleMania III and profits rose higher than they’d ever done before.

Toppling the evil Earthquake in 1990 came with the promise of a slam baked in. This was how monsters had been vanquished in WWE, and Yokozuna was proving to be the most dangerous of all for being too big for ‘The Hulkster’ or anybody else to do the job. Even Randy Savage - relegated to a hosting job for most of the day - failed alongside colleagues such as fellow former WWE Champion Bob Backlund and collegiate standouts The Steiner Brothers.

Crush was months away from embracing Mr Fuji and Japanese culture in a story that started with his confidence being wrecked here along with some muscles in his back. The whole scene called out for a hero when none were forthcoming, but it fell to a heel who suddenly decided that the one thing more important than marvelling at his own muscles was that beautiful Star-Spangled Banner. Lex Luger landed via helicopter and shoved associate Bobby Heenan away, denoting that he was about to turn. One flex of those famous biceps and a “hip-toss” later, and the former “Narcissist” was now en route to SummerSlam with the hopes and dreams of millions (perhaps more accurately, hundreds of thousands) of Americans resting on his chiseled shoulders.

If the Bodyslam Challenge hadn’t been audacious enough, Vince McMahon’s bananas plan to create an instant replacement for Hulk Hogan was next-level jingoism. Luger rode a “call-to-action” campaign bus across the United States over the summer, ostensibly electioneering for the title shot but in reality looking to garner support where just weeks earlier there had been none.

A Michael Bolton sound-alike belted out a ballad called “I’ll Be Your Hero” as footage played of Luger hitting every landmark across all 50 states while signing countless autographs for those turning out decked in red, white and blue. SummerSlam ’93 had a poster featuring Yoko jumping on the American flag with the tagline “Somebody has to stop him!” as if he’d morphed from heel Champion to recognised national threat.

For a man with familial roots in the wrestling business running way deeper than Luger’s, it had to be amusing from Rodney Anaoi’s side, but he performed gamely in the role too, doubling down on his own hatred of the USA and adding Jim Cornette to his fold as a more acerbic mouthpiece and kayfabe legal eagle.

The stage was seemingly set for the Champion to fall, but in a curious ending to SummerSlam, he only did so by count-out. As the ‘Narcissist’, Luger had used an elbow strike with surgical steel plates inside as his finisher.

He’d been forced to wear a pad to supposedly offset the damage as a heel, but as the babyface, he decked it the flag along with every other inch of his body and tried to have a fair fight. When the match inevitably broke down, Luger took a chance and cleaned Yoko’s clock, but the titleholder collapsed to the floor and lost by count-out. It was a bizarre non-committal of an ending but played out as if the Lex Express and everything from July 4th had been leading to this pyrrhic victory. In real life, Vince McMahon was suddenly uncertain about Luger’s precise potential in the spot, electing to potentially delay the crowning until WrestleMania instead.

This was at least a tacit show of support to Yokozuna as Champion too, and he was about to enter into a far more appealing programme now that both Hart and Luger were potentially in the frame for a ‘Grandest Stage’ showdown at Madison Square Garden in March. For the first time in nearly four years, the ever-present and ever-dominant Undertaker was about to be written out of storylines.

And who else was better placed to be responsible than the company’s top heel? In a memorable transition of the heat from Luger to ‘The Deadman’, the Survivor Series found Undertaker stepping in to replace Tatanka lost his undefeated streak and pay-per-view spot thanks to injuries sustained at the hands and sizeable posterior of Yokozuna. Ludvig Borga had been the one to decisively pin the Native American, and the elimination match pitting the All-Americans against the Foreign Fanatics (!) climaxed with a Borga/Luger showdown in order for the babyfaces to prevail.

Well, it ended with that - it really climaxed when The Undertaker completely no-sold getting slammed into the steel steps by Yokozuna and the Champion selling abject terror for maybe the first time ever. It was a money moment in a time when nothing really drew, and the two worked a casket match at the 1994 Royal Rumble to capitalise on the genuine emotion and set the stage for Undertaker’s hiatus.

Having sold enough fear for the casket itself that fans could buy a title change, Yoko, Fuji and Cornette enlisted the help of virtually the entire heel roster to beat down The Undertaker and stuff him in the box. Notable here was a brief moment of solidarity between the samoans as Yoko, Afa and The Headshrinkers made a caving up gesture that the cameras caught enough of to acknowledge the bond.

The road from one WrestleMania to the next had been full of some earnestly sensational twists and turns, but Yokozuna’s impact within that time had been undeniable. He’d put Hulk Hogan and The Undertaker down and out of the company, staved off Lex Luger, Randy Savage and other big hitters, and had survived a television title defence against Bret Hart in a manner that suggested he could do it again if they were to meet again down the road.

That meeting came at WrestleMania X, and with it, the beginning of an extremely protracted end...