Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: Marc Raimondi, nwo, wrestling

New Book by Marc Raimondi Credits NWO with Wrestling Revolution

Comrades, prepare for a thrilling dive into the NWO’s impact on American pop culture with Marc Raimondi’s upcoming book! El Presidente shares his excitement.

Article Summary Explore Marc Raimondi’s book on NWO’s cultural impact due March 2025.

Relive the 90s with NWO’s charisma and bad-boy influence on pop culture.

NWO popularity boosted El Presidente’s approval ratings significantly.

Raimondi’s narrative promises an authentic look at NWO’s enduring legacy.

Comrades, it is I, El Presidente, reporting to you live from a secret underground bunker, where I have just received news of an upcoming book that promises to shed light on the glorious days of the NWO (New World Order). “The NWO: How Wrestling’s Most Notorious Faction Changed American Pop Culture” by ESPN reporter Marc Raimondi is set to hit the shelves in March 2025, and I cannot contain my excitement!

As I sit here, surrounded by mementos of my encounters with the legendary NWO, I am transported back to the 1990s when I had the privilege of hanging out with wrestling icons like Hollywood Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash at extravagant parties attended by the world’s most notorious dictators. The mere presence of the NWO at these gatherings would send shockwaves through the room, leaving even the most hardened autocrats in awe of their charisma and bad-boy appeal.

Raimondi’s book delves into the profound impact the NWO had on popular culture, extending far beyond the wrestling ring. They revolutionized the industry by making it cool to be the villain, blurring the lines between fiction and reality in a way that captivated audiences and inspired a generation of fans to embrace their inner rebel.

The NWO’s influence on my own popularity cannot be overstated. As their fame grew, so did the appeal of being associated with the bad guys. Thanks to the NWO, my approval rating soared from an already impressive 97% to an astonishing 99%. The black and white shirts of the NWO became a symbol of rebellion, a fashion statement that represented the spirit of the times.

Comrades, I eagerly await the release of this book, which promises to provide a compelling and gripping narrative history of the NWO, from their inception in 1996 to their lasting influence on American pop culture. As a devoted fan and someone who had the privilege of witnessing their rise firsthand, I am confident that Raimondi’s work will do justice to the legacy of these wrestling legends.

Ah, comrades, how can I forget the time I teamed up with my NWO compatriots – the worm-turner Dennis Rodman and the master of covert maneuvers, Vincent of the esteemed NWO B-Team. With us was none other than the supreme leader and slam-dunker of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Kim Jong Un. Together, we infiltrated a secret CIA spy enclave nestled within the treacherously capitalist walls of Walt Disney World.

Our mission was clandestine and clear: to strike a blow to the very heart of American espionage by challenging their top agents to a game of four-on-four basketball. The stakes? If we won, the CIA would have to abandon their plans of spreading propaganda via Mickey Mouse cartoons. If we lost, I would have to share my legendary recipe for socialist-inspired empanadas with the enemy.

The game commenced under the hot Floridian sun, disguised as a casual park attraction for the unsuspecting tourists. I must admit, the CIA agents were skilled with more than just their bugging devices – they could dribble and shoot with a capitalist efficiency. But their overconfidence was their downfall; they underestimated the power of the NWO and the Supreme Leader’s prowess on the court.

As the game heated up, Rodman showcased his rebounding proficiency, leaping high above the agents who were as outmatched as a group of school children facing a pack of hungry wolves. Vincent utilized his stealth capabilities, sneaking past the enemy’s defenses to score point after magnificent point. And Kim Jong Un? His majesty on the court was nothing short of poetry in motion, a ballet of basketball that left the spies disoriented and demoralized.

In the end, with the score tied and mere seconds on the clock, it was I, El Presidente, who took the final shot. Time seemed to stop as the ball arced gracefully through the air before swishing through the net, securing our victory and smashing the capitalist schemes to smithereens. The crowd erupted into chants of “Viva la NWO!” as the CIA agents slunk away, their mission foiled and their spirits crushed.

The victory was not just for the NWO but for all the champions of socialism across the globe. We celebrated by feasting on the very empanadas I had safeguarded from the clutches of the CIA, toasting to our glorious triumph over the imperialists. And as I shared this moment with my comrades Rodman, Vincent, and Kim Jong Un, I couldn’t help but revel in the unbreakable bond formed by our allegiance to the NWO and the relentless pursuit of freedom from capitalist tyranny.

So, my loyal comrades, let us raise a glass to the upcoming release of “The NWO: How Wrestling’s Most Notorious Faction Changed American Pop Culture.” And remember, sometimes it pays to be the bad guy. Embrace your inner NWO, challenge the status quo, and fight for what you believe in. That, my friends, is the essence of socialism.

Until next time, this is El Presidente, signing off from my secret underground bunker, eagerly awaiting the arrival of this must-read book. Viva la revolución!

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Editor’s note: This story was originally published ahead of WrestleMania 39.

ROMAN REIGNS WAS 4 years old, playing on the side of his family’s home in Pensacola, Florida. It was a sunny day in 1989.

Unexpectedly, at least to Reigns, a giant RV pulled up in front of the house. From the vehicle came Reigns’ first cousin, Solofa Fatu Jr., who would become better known as Rikishi. Following Fatu were two twin boys, around the same age as Reigns.

Reigns was immediately suspicious. So he did the first thing that popped into his 4-year-old mind. He extended his arm, flexed his wrist and gave them the middle finger.

“I flipped them off,” Reigns told ESPN with a laugh. “I was like, ‘I’m so much smarter than these guys, they don’t even know what this means.'”

Perhaps it’s no surprise to anyone following WWE for the past three years that Reigns’ first reaction to the sight of his cousins, who perform under the names Jey and Jimmy Uso, was passive aggression.

Since 2020, the three of them — dubbed The Bloodline — have been involved in one of the most compelling storylines in the history of professional wrestling, one that has made a mark in television ratings and at the box office. Reigns, in his role as Undisputed WWE Universal champion and “Tribal Chief” of the family, has ruled with an iron fist, mixing feigned affection for The Usos with a steady diet of manipulation and gaslighting.

The 37-year-old Reigns, closing in on 1,000 days with the pair of belts, will headline his third consecutive WrestleMania on Sunday in Los Angeles, defending his titles against Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania 39. The Usos, the undisputed WWE tag team champions, will put their titles up against Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens this weekend at SoFi Stadium.

There is no Bloodline story, however, without the real-life Anoa’i, Fatu and Maivia families, which have been christened together as The Samoan Dynasty by relatives. The Dynasty’s takeover of the professional wrestling business started with “High Chief” Peter Maivia in the 1960s and 1970s, continued into the 1980s with The Wild Samoans and Samoan SWAT Team tag teams and exploded in the 1990s with performers like Yokozuna, Rikishi and The Rock. The latter, of course, is the wrestling moniker used by Dwayne Johnson, one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood and one of the most recognizable people on the planet.

The Samoan Dynasty was already on the wrestling map before now. But Reigns and the Usos have led it into this generation and, arguably, have elevated it to become the most significant family in the industry’s history, save for the McMahons.

“The Anoa’i and Fatu Samoan family dynasty has become the dominant family dynasty,” said Paul Heyman, the Bloodline’s on-and off-screen adviser who has been close with the clan since the early 1980s. “More so than the Harts and more so than the Funks. More so than the Briscos. More so than the Rhodeses.”

“The High Chief” Peter Maivia and his longtime best friend Rev. Amituana’i Anoa’i, became “blood brothers” and melded their families together into one. WWE

PETER MAIVIA, BORN on the South Pacific island of American Samoa, was a star during the territory days of professional wrestling, before cable and WWE’s dominance. His longtime best friend from back home was the Rev. Amituana’i Anoa’i. The two were “blood brothers” and the men melded their families together.

In the early 1970s, Anoa’i’s sons, Afa and Sika, would drive Maivia, who they considered their uncle, up and down the freeways of California to wrestling events. Maivia had a heated match with the legendary Pat Patterson in San Francisco in 1970, and the Anoa’i brothers got a little too rowdy in the crowd. Afa, Sika and the other Samoans in attendance rooting for Maivia were arrested.

“Peter decided he’d better train me to wrestle and put me in the business before we cause some damage and wind up in prison,” Afa told ESPN.

Afa started training under Maivia and Maivia’s son-in-law Rocky Johnson and got booked to perform in Arizona. Sika soon followed, and the tag team, The Wild Samoans, was born. Their gimmicks were stereotypical, portraying uncivilized islanders with the unspoken implication that they were cannibals.

“Our in-ring characters were old-school savage, non-English-speaking, fish-eating, tearing-off-your-head wrestlers,” Afa said.

The team of feared heels, or bad guys, was a success. They worked the NWA territory circuit for most of the ’70s before landing in the WWF (now WWE) in 1979. One year later, Afa and Sika met a 14-year-old kid from New York who was shooting photos for wrestling magazines: Paul Heyman. The brothers took him under their wings. Despite his age, the precocious Heyman, who had just gotten credentialed to cover WWF events, started to drive with The Wild Samoans to shows all over the Northeast. Afa’s son Samu, only two years older than Heyman, would tag along, too.

Afa Anoa’i, Yokozuna, Mr. Fuji and The Headshrinkers (Samu and Fatu) were prominently featured in WWF matches in the early 1990s. WWE

Part of the Wild Samoans’ gimmick was genuine, Heyman said. He said they were “legitimately very tough guys,” but they also had hearts of gold. They visited any wrestler hospitalized with injuries sustained in the ring, even if Afa and Sika were not in the match.

“They could outdrink and outfight any other tandem on the face of the planet,” Heyman said. “And had no quarrels proving that anytime any duo wanted to challenge them for either of those laurels.”

In 1982, Solofa, the nephew of Afa and Sika, referred to by the family as Junior, sustained a gunshot wound in a drive-by shooting in the San Francisco Bay Area. When the then-teen recovered, his mother, Elevera, sent him to train in pro wrestling with her brothers.

Like his elders before him, Junior took to the medium quickly. He and his cousin Samu began to team up as The Samoan SWAT Team in WCW and were later a trio, joined by Junior’s twin brother, Sam Fatu (character name: The Samoan Savage), who was already a star in WWF in the mid-1980s as The Tonga Kid. Their on-screen manager? None other than Heyman, who had remained close to the family.

One day in 1989, Junior brought his twin sons to a WCW television taping. At the time, they were just 4 years old, but, Heyman recalled, within five minutes of playing around the ring, the kids were landing top-rope splashes onto each other.

“I went on television the next weekend and I said, ‘What a revelation it was for me to see that,'” Heyman said. “Because like a bird to air, like a fish to water, is a Samoan to the wrestling ring. It’s the same thing. It’s instinctual, it’s in the blood.”

The Anoa’i and Fatu family loved competing in all sports, including baseball, but there was always an understanding that professional wrestling would always be a future option. WWE

Junior’s twin sons were named Joshua and Jonathan. But they’re better known to WWE fans as the Usos — Jey and Jimmy, respectively.

A year before Heyman’s introduction to the future tag stars, he ran into Sika backstage at a show in Panama City, Florida. Sika had his then-3-year-old son Joe with him. Joe is, of course, now known as Roman Reigns, pro wrestling’s top star. And the 57-year-old Heyman is on television weekly at his side, holding his championship belts as Reigns’ “special counsel.”

“[Reigns] had more charisma at 3 years old than an entire locker room filled with future Hall of Famers,” Heyman told ESPN last year. “You could just tell right there there’s something very special about that young man.”

A young Roman Reigns, Jimmy Uso and Jey Uso. WWE

TWO CHILDHOOD MEMORIES stand out to Reigns and the Usos: wrestling and barbecues.

Reigns remembers a wrestling ring built in the back of an apartment duplex his family owned in Pensacola, about a mile from their home. As a kid, Reigns would pull up and see his father training the likes of Junior, Sam Fatu and Rodney Anoa’i, who became WWF champion as the character Yokozuna. Reigns’ older brother, Matt Anoa’i, who later wrestled in WWE as Rosey, would be there, too.

And then there were the cookouts.

“Imagine you walking in a backyard, and you see big Yokozuna sitting there, Barbarian [Sione Vailahi], my dad, Samu, Tonga Kid, the Wild Samoans,” Jimmy Uso said. “You see this big cooler of turkey tails — it’s turkey butt. I didn’t even know they made coolers that big. It was huge. And they’re marinating at least 100 pieces of turkey tails. Yoko is sitting there, slabbing on the grill, eating damn near half of them, and dipping it in mayonnaise. That’s how I found out how everyone got so big.

“They call mayonnaise Samoan steroids.”

The most notorious dipper was Junior’s younger brother Edward “Ecky” Fatu, who gained stardom in WWF as Umaga. Jey said “Ecky” would take the already-cooked chicken and dip it back in the marinade, which had been mixed in the coolers with raw chicken.

Edward Fatu, known as Umaga in professional wrestling, was a two-time WWE intercontinental champion. Fatu died in 2009 at the age of 36. WWE

“I’m like, ‘What, bro? You’re going to get sick,'” Jey said. “He’s like, ‘Nah, I don’t get sick.’ OK, you a savage.”

The Anoa’i and Fatu family were made up of larger-than-life men. Most of them played football, including Reigns, who was an All-ACC defensive tackle at Georgia Tech and then signed with the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings before a bout with leukemia derailed his gridiron career.

Like most men in the family, pro wrestling would be there, though. And Reigns and the Usos benefited from learning by watching, sometimes without knowing it. Yozokuna was tangling with the likes of Hulk Hogan in the early 1990s. Umaga was involved in a WrestleMania match opposite Donald Trump. Junior went from teaming with Samu as the Samoan SWAT Team and the Headshrinkers to becoming a wildly popular singles star in the late 1990s as Rikishi, who could dance and have fun as quickly as he could lay down a beating on an out-of-line heel.

“I always thought everybody’s dad was on TV,” Jey said. “I ain’t know no better, man. I was just like, everybody wrestles, everyone’s dad wrestles. … I didn’t know until probably middle school and I’m like, ‘Oh, no, I get it. Like, we got a special family going on here.'”

Reigns said he’ll channel one of his relatives while playing his character now on TV without even knowing it. But Heyman will catch it.

“He’ll be like, ‘Oh, I saw Junior in your eyes there,'” Reigns said. “I’m like, ‘What?’ Paul sees that type of stuff. I don’t necessarily see it, because it’s just normal to me. I will see stuff that I do that I didn’t notice. But Paul will be able to label it like, ‘Oh, you look like Big Sam [Fatu] right there.'”

Rocky Johnson and Ata Maivia were married in 1978 and had one child together, a son named Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. WWE

REIGNS WAS 12 years old when his father, Sika, took him to visit another cousin. WWF was running its television show, Raw, in Biloxi, Mississippi, on Aug. 11, 1997. They went backstage to meet an up-and-coming wrestling prospect who had borrowed from family names to call his character Rocky Maivia.

His real name was Dwayne Johnson, the son of Rocky Johnson and Ata Maivia, Peter Maivia’s daughter. The Anoa’is and Johnsons were very close when Dwayne was growing up. Afa and Sika, who often wrestled with or against Rocky on the same cards, would attend Dwayne’s high school football games when they all lived in Pennsylvania.

Reigns said he met Dwayne several times when he was young, but has no memory of it. He does recall watching him on TV right before he broke out into a megastar as The Rock, as that was around the same time as their backstage meeting when Reigns was a preteen. It was brief, Reigns said. Dwayne greeted his younger cousin by calling him Sole (pronounced SOH-lay), a Samoan term of endearment akin to “bro” or “dude.”

Over the years, Reigns said, he and Dwayne have gotten “really close.” Given their busy schedules, it can be challenging for them to talk often. But shared experiences, like their time together on the movie set of “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw,” have made it easy to “fast track” discussions.

“It’s weird, because the paths and experiences are so similar that when we are together it’s like we cover a month’s ground of conversation and things,” Reigns said. “Some stuff just doesn’t have to be said, because we’ve experienced the same stuff. And I have the mindset to experience a lot of things that he’s gone through since he’s been done with wrestling.”

Roman Reigns appeared in “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” alongside his cousin Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Family remains a big part of Dwayne’s life. His network television series “Young Rock” chronicles his childhood in a wrestling family, with actors playing the Afa and Sika roles. Last year, Dwayne surprised his cousin and WWE wrestler Tamina, the daughter of the late WWF luminary Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, with a new home in Los Angeles.

“He’s a huge mentor to me,” Tamina said, fighting back tears when asked about the surprise. “You never know what he’s going to do. He’s always going to hit you with something. That’s just how he is. … I couldn’t believe he did it and I was so grateful.”

There were rumors that WWE was trying to set up a family vs. family battle to main event WrestleMania 39 between Reigns and The Rock. It didn’t materialize. Heyman said Dwayne wouldn’t have enough time with his acting schedule to get into the kind of cardiovascular shape he would want to be in for a match of that magnitude. Dwayne last appeared in WWE in 2019; his most recent full-length match was 10 years ago.

“I think anybody would love to have that match,” Reigns said. “They’d be lying [if they said they didn’t]. I could ‘Tribal Chief’ you and say blah, blah. But at the end of the day, I want what’s going to be biggest for the fans, because that’s going to reflect what I was able to accomplish. And if that’s one of the biggest ones out there, let’s do it. But if not, like everything else in life, we’re going to roll with the punches.

Rikishi’s sons Jonathan Fatu (Jimmy Uso), Jeremiah Fatu, Joshua Fatu (Jey Uso) along with Sika’s son, Joe Anoa’i (Roman Reigns). WWE

WHILE REIGNS MIGHT be the “Head of the Table” in storyline now, but when he first signed with WWE in 2010, he was in Florida Championship Wrestling (the promotion’s developmental territory). Jey and Jimmy were already traveling with the main roster, accompanied by Tamina. Three months older than the twins, Reigns said he would watch the Usos much like he’d watch the player ahead of him on the depth chart in football.

Reigns and Jey were neighbors then, in what Jey describes as a “raggedy little” apartment complex in the Tampa area. When Jey got home from the road, he’d bang on the wall to let Reigns know he was back, and the two would go out onto their shared porch, crack open cans of Coors Light and talk into the night about the “ABCs” of wrestling, like how to lay out a match, Reigns said.

“I could watch the twins, because our movement patterns are far more similar than like me and ‘Ecky’ or Rodney or even Junior,” Reigns said. “Me and the twins have a closer build and a closer athleticism. So, I can look at the basics like, ‘Oh, that’s how he did that hip toss. OK. That’s how he does a suplex.’ Not necessarily their signature stuff, but the early basics.”