Okay, so I was just kicking back the other day, watching some old WWE stuff, you know? And Roman Reigns, The Head of the Table, he’s always surrounded by his family, The Bloodline. They keep hammering home the ‘cousins’ thing, especially with The Usos.
It got me thinking. Like, really thinking. Are they all direct cousins? How deep does this family connection actually go? It felt like almost everyone with Samoan roots in WWE was somehow related to him. So, I decided to do a little digging myself. Wasn’t planning on making a big project out of it, just wanted to satisfy my own curiosity.
I started just searching around online. Typed in stuff like “Roman Reigns family tree”, “Anoa’i family wrestlers”, that kind of thing. Man, let me tell you, it wasn’t as straightforward as I thought it would be. There are a lot of them.
Figuring Out the Connections
First off, The Usos – Jimmy and Jey. Yeah, they’re definitely related. Turns out their dad is Rikishi, the guy famous for the Stink Face back in the day. And Rikishi is the first cousin of Roman’s dad, Sika Anoa’i (one half of the Wild Samoans). So, that makes Roman and The Usos first cousins, once removed. Close enough for wrestling storylines, right? Makes sense why they call each other cousins.
Then there’s Solo Sikoa, the younger brother of Jimmy and Jey. So, same deal, he’s also Roman’s first cousin, once removed. He fits right into that Bloodline picture.
But here’s where it got a bit more interesting for me:
- The Rock: Everyone calls The Rock his cousin. I always just accepted it. But when I looked closer, it’s not a direct blood relation like with The Usos. Their grandfathers, Peter Maivia (Rock’s side) and Amituana’i Anoa’i (Roman’s side), were “blood brothers”. So, it’s a super deep family bond, like adopted family, going way back. They consider each other cousins, and that’s what matters, but technically not blood cousins. Learned something there.
- Other Big Names: The list just kept growing. Yokozuna? Yep, related. Umaga? Related (he was Rikishi’s brother, so Usos’ uncle). Rosey? He was actually Roman Reigns’ real brother, Matthew Anoa’i. They even tagged together for a bit.
I spent a good hour or so just tracing lines, figuring out who was whose uncle, nephew, cousin. It’s like a giant wrestling dynasty. You’ve got Afa and Sika (Roman’s dad), then their kids and nephews and cousins spreading out through generations of wrestling.
It’s pretty wild when you actually lay it all out. No wonder they call it a dynasty. It’s not just hype. They genuinely have dominated Polynesian representation in pro wrestling for decades. Seeing how interconnected they all were, through blood or through these deep family bonds like with The Rock, was quite the eye-opener.
So yeah, that was my little journey down the Anoa’i family rabbit hole. Started with a simple question about cousins and ended up mapping out a huge chunk of wrestling history. Definitely makes watching The Bloodline segments a bit different now, knowing the full extent of that family tree. It’s more than just a gimmick, that’s for sure.
