During a candid appearance on the No-Contest Wrestling podcast, WWE Superstar Jey Uso revealed a gripping and emotional story about how his late uncle, Edward Fatu—best known to fans as Umaga—abruptly pushed him and his twin brother Jimmy Uso into the world of professional wrestling.
Jey began by recalling the period after college when he and Roman Reigns were working a mundane 9-to-5 job selling office furniture. After their shifts, he and Jimmy would often relax at a local bar in Pensacola, Florida—until one night, everything changed. “We over there, chilling, and I just, I just feel like a big hand, just like, slap my shoulder. Boom,” Jey said. “I turn around like, that’s my uncle in the middle of us. Like, just pissed off, right?”
To their shock, Umaga had driven in from Houston. “He was just laying in on us,” Jey recalled. “[He said] ‘Y’all mother-, like, so like… y’all MF is getting fat, you know, y’all over here wasting… ain’t doing shit… Y’all want to, y’all want to come make a good living. Or what?’” Umaga issued an ultimatum right then and there: “If y’all don’t leave with me tonight, like, I ain’t, I’m not reaching my hand no more.”
The directive was clear. “Call your boss,” Umaga told them. That boss just happened to be Roman Reigns’ sister. Jey rushed to his apartment, packed a single bag, and told his then-girlfriend he was leaving that night. Jimmy, who lived next door, did the same. “I got evicted out that apartment, you know? Yeah, one bag goes, one and done,” Jey shared. The brothers left money behind for their families and embarked on a nine-hour drive with Umaga to Houston.
Once there, they began training with some of the industry’s biggest names. “We’re training every day. Charlie Haas, Shelton Benjamin, Carlito… Rey Mysterio, so we around this,” Jey said. Reflecting on the life-altering moment, he added, “I’m glad he just picked us up by the collar, though, and drug our ass out of there, but we ain’t look back since.”
