wrestling / News
Tamina Snuka Discusses Getting Rejected by WWE After Her First Tryout, Learning the Splash Move From Her Father
– Chasing Glory With Lilian Garcia recently interviewed WWE Superstar Tamina Snuka. Below are some highlights and audio from the interview (transcript via WrestlingInc.com)
Tamina on being a generational wrestler: “I feel like everyone thinks and expects that coming into the wrestling industry, if you are a generation wrestler then it is so easy to get into it. But while others don’t realize this, it actually isn’t because you have all these different generation wrestlers from Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, you know, you keep going down the line of all of us that have come up, it is nice because you have to try and put yourself, like, ‘Okay, I am actually the daughter, or the son and now I have to live up to their expectations.’ But really, no, you have to work even extra harder.”
Tamina on being rejected by WWE after her first tryout: “I tried out and didn’t make it the first time. I tried out, and didn’t make it, but I needed to lose weight. I was too big, there was all these different things I didn’t make it to what they thought at the time a ‘Diva’ should be, and that wasn’t me. Coming in, I was around 185 lbs; a big, strong Samoan girl. But at the same time it wasn’t what they were looking for, but again, I look back to what my dad said: it is all about the timing. That was when I had to go to Afa’s school and train there for a little bit and kind of get it down to where you knew what you had to do and learn all the little bumps.”
Tamina on learning to do The Splash from her father before her second tryout: “The first time I had done The Splash was on my dad, and when he taught me it at that moment, he said that I have to do it again and I have to keep going and we just kept doing it one after another after another. I don’t know if that was what got me hired, but when I tried out the second time, and at the time Johnny Ace was looking to see if he was looking to hire, I had my tryout with Mickie James. We were in Orlando, Florida and they told Mickie James to let her work with me, and at the time I didn’t know about the code of shaking everyone’s hand and you have to make sure and put your bag in the bathroom and stuff like that. I had no idea because I wasn’t that locker room etiquette type, I only knew what my dad taught me and was preparing me for, so I went in and had that tryout.”
Tamina on being told to miss the Splash move on her second tryout: “The only thing I had ever learned was to hit The Splash and it was on pops. So when they told me to miss it, I didn’t know how to land or what to do. So when I went up and did it and Mickie James rolled out of the way so I missed it, I was like, ‘Yeah, I don’t know how I’m supposed to sell this’ but I was like, I guess just try to sell it going up. But Jamie was telling me like, ‘No Tamina. When you hit it you roll up and sell your stomach.’ All those little things that you don’t know at that time, it was crazy. So after that the show was going on and that was when Johnny Ace gave me that speech that they were going to take me in.I feel like just being that generational wrestler you are hating it, but you are doing it because of you and not because of your father who wrestled at that time because it is a totally different time. You have to be that whole different generation. They want you to be better than they were but it is hard because they were the legends during their time.”
