Umaga died 13 years ago, at age 36. He had all the potential of a major rising star in WWE. He became the intercontinental champion and demolished everyone in his path. Umaga is the cousin of Roman Reigns and uncle to the Usos and Solo Sikoa.
He first came into WWE as part of three-minute warning, but was released around a year after debuting. He worked in TNA, and in New Japan wrestling, and returned to WWE in 2006. There, Jamal, as he was known of outside wrestling, asserted himself as a growing monster heel. He was involved Vince McMahon’s ECW feud with Bobby Lashley, being part of a three man team that faced Bobby Lashley at Backlash.
This could be considered a major booking mistake for Umaga’s career. Even though the feud with Vince was the key storyline in ECW at the time, it would have made sense if Umaga became the ECW champion. He also faced, and got utterly destroyed by John Cena in a pair of matches.
Umaga was unwittingly the first in a formula for Cena feuds that lead us to stars like Rusev, Kevin Owens, and Bray Wyatt. The idea being to build a monster wrestler, and then Cena destroy him.
Umage passed away of a heart attack related to substance abuse in 2009. He was 36 years old. Umaga will always be remembered as one of the biggest potential stars, who never got quite what seemed to be promised for him.
Check us out on Facebook.
