Tamina was this week’s guest on Chasing Glory with Lilian Garcia and spoke about breaking into wrestling and some of the advice her father, WWE Hall Of Famer Jimmy Snuka, passed on to her.
Tamina spoke about following in her father’s footsteps as a generational or legacy wrestler, saying it’s actually harder than most would believe, saying she didn’t get signed by WWE after her first tryout:
“I feel like everyone thinks and expects coming into wrestling if you’re a generational wrestler it’s so easy to be able to get into it. I feel like, and other people don’t realize it, actually it isn’t. Especially with the start, all of these different generational wrestlers—Mr Perfect, Dusty Rhodes, you keep going down the line—all of us that came up, you have to try and live up to [the fans’] expectations, when really you have to work even extra hard.
I tried out and I didn’t make it the first time. I don’t know if it was to lose weight or I was too big, it was all of these different things [that I thought] of why I didn’t make it to what a ‘Diva’ at the time should be. Coming out I was 185 lbs, that wasn’t me, I’m a big, strong Fijian/Samoan girl, but at the same time I guess that’s not what they were looking for. I go back to what my Dad said, it’s all about the timing. That’s when I had to go to Afa’s school and train there for a little bit, I guess to where you say you get it down to [learning the basics]. When I tried out again, before the tryout started, I had gone to my Dad and asked him to teach me how to do the splash. My Dad came down and we went to a school in Fort Lauderdale, and my Dad did some things with me and showed me how to do the splash. The very first time I did the splash was on my Dad. [Tamina gets choked up about his passing] He just kept saying ‘you got to keep doing that, sista!’ and we did one after another after another after another.”
Tamina went on to explain she was hired after her second tryout, which saw her work a match against Mickie James. She explained how agents told her to miss the splash she had learned, which confused her at the time because all she’d learned was how to perform the move correctly.
Tamina also talked about getting her first solo t-shirt in nearly nine years with WWE, some of the advice her father instilled in her and her feelings or self-doubt and determination along the way:
“I got my first shirt at Evolution. When we were Team BAD with Sasha Banks and Naomi, we had that shirt and I was like, ‘yeah! This is the first time I get to be part of something.’ I was so grateful, like ‘oh my gosh, this is so cool. This is our shirt.’ But for me to have my [first solo shirt] at Evolution when they said I was going to get my own t-shirt I couldn’t help but to be grateful and blessed because that’s how ‘Sarona’ should feel. Tamina was like ‘mother… what the hell! It’s about time!’ I’ve been here for how long, and I still didn’t get a t-shirt? Maybe to other people that’s a t-shirt, but when you see—and it’s not knocking any of the other girls—when you see these kids from NXT and they have their t-shirts right away—I guess then you start to question yourself. ‘Am I not good enough? Am I not top star material? What am I doing wrong?’ And I thought I did everything that I could do. There was a couple times, and I had mentioned it to you before, where I had felt like I looked my best and I busted my ass to get there. If anyone knows, for a Polynesian, Fijian / Samoan woman, that’s hard to do, especially when your genetics are to be bulky. I was bulky when I was born. [laughs] I feel bad for my mom, I think I was her fattest baby. In the womb already, we’re Fijian / Samoan warriors, we’re built to just be dominant.
We’re just built big, that’s what we’re built for. That’s how I felt, it was really, really hard for me. I trained day in, day out, there were times where I didn’t even see my girls for weeks. I trained with Dave Ramsey and he got me in the best shape of my life. Not just once or twice, but all of these times where I was just shredded. I thought I looked amazing at the time and I thought I was the best because I was the strongest one there. In my head, I could sit here and go back and forth in my head, and I had mentors like Dany Garcia who would tell me ‘no, you’re fine, you’re doing great’, but I never became champion. At the time, I was like ‘what else do I need to do?’ Maybe I don’t have enough charisma, maybe I don’t have enough this, maybe I don’t have enough that. I thought I was a great wrestler, all of these things, and it still didn’t matter. I busted my ass to lose weight, look good and be the best, all of these things that I needed to do to be the champion.
I talked to my Dad every week, and I didn’t get it. I didn’t know what I was doing wrong to be able to have that. When you’re going through everything else in your life, you’re missing your girls, you’re missing that life of being a mom, whatever you can do to support them and yourself, because that’s what I was trying to do. But at the same time trying to live my dream, and [say] no, this is what I love to do. So when you don’t know at the time—maybe I need to get bigger or get different gear—everyone can give you their views and their points of what you need to do better, but it just doesn’t work. You just keep grinding, and that was the thing my dad kept saying. You keep going, and you keep striving and staying strong no matter what, because eventually it will come, and no matter what, you still be good to people. That was his whole thing, that you be good to people and it will come later. I was like ‘OK, when’s the later?’ [laughs]”
