Afa Anoa’i, best known for his work as part of the Wild Samoans pro wrestling tag team, has died, according to his family and WWE. The WWE Hall of Fame performer was 81 years old, passing away just two months after his brother and tag team partner Sika.
“It is with deepest regret that we announce the passing of my father Afa Anoai Sr.,” his son Samu wrote sharing the news on Facebook. “It was a peaceful transition and he was surrounded by loved ones. Please respect our privacy as we mourn our father.”
Anoa’i had entered hospice care recently, the Wrestling Observer reports. He experienced two heart attacks while battling pneumonia in January, later going through multiple back surgeries after breaking his back in a March fall.
Afa and his younger brother Sika were an iconic pro wrestling tag team through the 1970s and ‘80s before officially retiring in the mid-’90s. They were one of the top teams in the WWE (then WWF) in the early ’80s, but Afa lost his job in 1984. He attributed this decision by the company to his choice to miss work for the birth of his son.
The Wild Samoans were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2007. Afa’s brother Sika died two months ago at 79 years old. The team was known for both embracing their Samoan heritage while also being put into characters and storylines where that heritage was stereotyped and/or mocked.
Their influence is most acutely felt through their extended family and close family friends who remain a dominant force in pro wrestling, including headlining this year’s WrestleMania with the “Bloodline” faction. Afa’s nephew, Sika’s son Roman Reigns, held the Undisputed WWE Universal Heavyweight Championship for more than three-and-a-half years before losing it to Cody Rhodes in April.
“Our family has suffered another great loss with the passing of my uncle and WWE Hall of Famer, Gataivasā Afa Amituana’i Anoa’i,” Reigns wrote on X Friday. “We thank everyone for their support and are comforted by the fact that he now rests in peace. Afa and my father, Pola’ivao Leati Sika Anoa’I were loving brothers, the greatest tag team of their generation, and now they’re reunited together in heaven. Rest in Power Wild Samoans.”
In the later years of his career, Afa managed tag team The Headshrinkers in the early ’90s, which included his son Samu and nephew Fatu. Fatu would go on to be known as Rikishi. Afa retired from WWE in 1995.
Afa and Sika also ran the Wild Samoan Training Facility and trained younger wrestlers, including future WWE star and eventual Hollywood headliner, Dave Bautista.
WWE’s chief content officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque, a retired wrestler himself, wrote on X, “Afa was devoted to his family, dominant in the ring and dedicated to building future generations of WWE Superstars. My thoughts are with the entire Anoa’i family as we remember the legendary Afa.”
You can watch Afa Anoa’i tour WWE’s NXT training facility in a 2018 video, below:
