Exclusive Backlash Interview with WWE Superstar Jacob Fatu | No-Contest Wrestling

Jacob Fatu is going to Backlash on Saturday to take the WWE Undisputed Championship off his older cousin. He explained to the No Contest Wrestling Podcast why that path was the only one available to him.

"I'm tired of waiting in line," Fatu told hosts TJ Jefferson and OSHA Jackson Jr. "I'm not saying I've been waiting, but yeah, my time didn't start till I got here to WWE."

The setup for the title match is unusual even by WWE family-feud standards. Roman Reigns is Fatu's older cousin. Their grandmothers were sisters. Fatu's father, Tonga Kid, and Roman's father, Sika, are family. As a teenager in California, Fatu was sent to a juvenile facility in Florida and spent time living with Roman's sister. He watched Roman play college football at Georgia Tech in person.

That's the relationship Fatu is walking into the cage with on Saturday.

"It hasn't been nothing but preparation," he said. "Not just because it's just Roman, but then again, it is because it is Roman, one of the greatest of all time. I'm not going to sugar coat nothing. It's either going to make me or break me. But I definitely ain't going to be the one to get broke down, especially at Backlash at this type of caliber."

The case Fatu is making for himself rests on what he calls "the cat that's on top." If you are going to make a move, you make it on the head of the table. Anything less is waiting.

He framed it as obligation, not ambition. He has eight kids. Roman is responsible for 170 people in the extended bloodline. Fatu's responsibility is smaller and just as nonnegotiable.

"If anybody deserves it, my family deserves it," he said. "Even if I got to go through my own blood."

He acknowledged that the elders are not thrilled.

"There's friction," he said, lowering his voice. "If you know our culture and you know us, I'm not just talking about Samoans and Tongans, I'm talking about our Polynesian people. You know how family means so much to us in respect. Yeah, it is different."

Fatu walked the table through the move he reintroduced to break Roman down. The Tongan Death Grip is Haku's. Haku is Tama Tonga and Tonga Loa's father. The Anoa'i family and the Fatu family go back to Haku and Tonka Kid tagging as the Islanders in the 1980s. The Death Grip was not improvisational.

"Roman has been through everything," Fatu said. "F5 through Table, he's been through it all. And we're the same blood. So what can I use to take him out? It can't be just the power. It can't be just a drop on his head. It needs to be something that's within the family. Something that's within the family that could take all of us out."

Fatu touched on his Wrestlemania 42 walk back from the ring, alone, after his second straight undefeated Mania appearance. His wife had come to her first live event. He sat down before the interview and looked around at the cameras and the suits and his gear.

"I'm looking at Sam and I'm looking at my gear and I'm just like, damn," he said. "Like, bro, we really here."

Then he repeated the line that has followed him through every match since the Drew McIntyre run.

"WWE never seen no cat like me," Fatu said. "Let's keep it 100, bro. When was the last time somebody walked in the door like Jacob Fatu?"

Backlash is Saturday in Tampa.