Ex-eskimo finds new pro career
Anoa’i now wrestles with WWE
When he played for the Edmonton Eskimos, Leati Joseph (Joe) Anoa’i used to dream about having a nice, long look at an unprotected quarterback.
Last Monday, Roman Reigns saw daylight. He spotted his opponent off-guard, unprepared for the six-foot-three, 265pound locomotive that began chugging toward him. The results were predictable. The thousands watching at the Sprint Center in Kansas City ooh-ed and ahh-ed and Reigns’ team emerged victorious.
Of course, both men are one and the same. Anoa’i is known much more widely these days as Reigns (he has over 98,000 followers on Twitter under his World Wrestling Entertainment handle: @WWERomanReigns), one-third of a faction known as The Shield.
More comfortable these days going by his performing name, Reigns can succinctly wrap up his days as an Eskimo.
“They were relatively short,” he said with a chuckle over the phone last week as Reigns and his fellow professional wresters made their way to Alberta for a series of shows.
Anoa’i played five games for the Esks in 2008, starting three, and had nine tackles before being released on Nov. 10.
“(It was) pretty much one season,” he recalled. “I started off signed to the practice squad and then every once in a while I’d get activated for a few games. I was kind of going back and forth between practice squad and then, if someone got hurt or they needed an extra D-tackle to rotate in, they’d pull me up and I’d play that week or travel that week.”
On Tuesday, Reigns will be back in Edmonton for the first time since being cut by the Eskimos when WWE sets up at Rexall Place to record its weekly program, Smackdown.
Reigns grew up with both football and pro wrestling in his life. Drawn to football when he was just seven, he went on to a four-year NCAA career with the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. He was an undrafted signee of the Minnesota Vikings in May 2007, but was cut by the NFL team a few weeks later. He found a similar fate with the Jacksonville Jaguars in August 2007 before going to the CFL a year later.
As he pursued his football dream, wrestling was always in the background and always in his blood. The Anoa’i family is legendary in pro wrestling. Joe’s father, Leati, is a WWE Hall of Famer, known as Sika when he wrestled as one-half of a team called The Wild Samoans. Joe’s older brother, Matt, is a wrestler, too, working for WWE from 2002 to 2006.
The family tree branches out to numerous pro wrestlers over the past three generations and calls the family of Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson cousins. So when football didn’t work out, Reigns turned to his other passion.
“When I was a kid, that’s all we ever talked about, that’s all everyone around me did,” he said.
“Once things slowed down with football and I finished up in Canada, I figured out that the passion to wrestle and be a WWE superstar was still there, so it kind of summed things up for me, really focused me on getting into the business and learning to wrestle.”
It took a 1-1/2 years to transform himself into a wrestler.
“When I started out in the CFL, I was probably about 325 (pounds),” he said. “I had a totally different frame and I had a lot more weight on me. The initial transition was getting out of football shape and slimming down, tightening up and leaning up a lot to get a different look for a performer-type body frame for sports entertainment.
“The initial goal was to get down to my earlier years of college, even a high school weight of 245, 250. Once I got to that point, I put a little more weight on to where I am now, to 265, 270.”
Reigns spent more than two years in the WWE’s developmental system, competing in small venues in Florida, where he grew comfortable in his wrestling skin, learning not only the physical side of the craft but character development and microphone skills.
After a lifetime of having football fans cheer for him, he made his WWE debut on Nov. 18, 2012, as a part of The Shield — a trio of wrestlers who gang up on vulnerable good guys or baby faces — playing the role of a villain, or as it’s known in the wrestling world, a heel.
“If people want to boo me, that’s great,” Reigns said. “As long as they’re making noise and they’re into it … when I’m out there, I want people to show if they’re mad, they’re happy, just some kind of emotion.
“They paid money to come out and cut loose a little bit, so that’s what I intend on doing. I come out and cut loose and I let it all hang out.
“If I can elicit some kind of a response, that makes me happy, I know that. It doesn’t bother me at all to have people boo me.”
Now that he’s on TV every week and establishing himself as a wrestler, Reigns said his role isn’t that much different from his football days.
“I’ve always been a physical athlete, so getting in the ring and being, in a sense, in character is not me. It’s always been an extension of myself. Being a part of The Shield, it’s right up my alley to be an enforcer, to be the muscle of the group, almost like the D-linemen. A lot of times, that’s how it looks.
“I’m the D-lineman and (Shield members) Seth (Rollins) and Dean (Ambrose) are like linebackers running free. I can free them up to do whatever they want and back up anything they feel or say, so it’s a good feeling to be a part of the team again.”
“Any time I have that opportunity, I’m going to bring it.”
ROMAN REIGNS
As the locomotive chugging into his opponents in the ring, Reigns’ grand finale manoeuvre is in many ways a big tackle.
“I often think of it as it’s third-and-long and I’m turning the corner and I have a free shot at a quarterback,” he said. “Any time I have that opportunity, I’m going to bring it.”
He grew up thinking about a Super Bowl moment and maybe hoped for a Grey Cup moment during his stint with the Eskimos, but on April 7, Reigns got his first taste of his wrestling dream being realized.
He performed in front of a crowd of 80,676 fans at WrestleMania 29 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.
“That whole day, being there and walking out in front of 80,000 people … that was pretty remarkable,” he said. “There’ve been cool moments, but being in front of that many people, it almost felt like football again, but being the quarterback.”