Sika Anoa’i, better known in the professional wrestling world as Sika, has died at 79. The news was announced by Jahrus Anoa’i on Tuesday.
Anoa’i rose to fame as one half of the tag team The Wild Samoans alongside his older brother Afa, who also served as his trainer. The pair wrestled for almost every notable territory in wrestling across the 1970s and 80s, gaining notoriety for wild behavior that included eating raw fish in the ring.
The Wild Samoans debuted in WWF in 1980 where they were managed by “Captain” Lou Albano. That April they won the WWF tag team championship, defeating Ivan Putski and Tito Santana. They would drop the titles in August and win them again in September. After losing the belts for the second time, they would return to various territories, capturing more championships, including in Mid-South Wrestling and the National Wrestling Alliance.
The Samoans would make one more run as WWF tag team champions in 1983, eventually dropping them to the team of Rocky Johnson and Tony Atlas. Johnson, father of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, was on the other branch of the larger Anoa’i wrestling family tree.
Anoa’i would retire in 1988 but would remain an occasional presence in WWF/WWE, where The Wild Samoans were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2007.
Anoa’i was also the father of Roman Reigns and briefly returned to WWE in 2020 to play a role in Reigns’ ascendance as “The Head of the Table.” Both he and Afa appeared at that year’s Hell in a Cell pay-per-view to crown Reigns as “The Tribal Chief,” and would later be referred to as the family “elders” in some of Reigns’ storylines.
