The legend of King Tonga aka Meng

[Stefano]

He made his pro debut in 1977, weighs in at around 295 pounds, and uses the Tongan Death grip as his finishing maneuver. The
winner of the “I don’t want to run into you in a dark alley contest,”
hands down, is Meng! Meng, Haku, King Tonga, one half of the Islanders, whatever you want to call him, he definitely has the
respect of everyone

Soon, we realized that this was the baddest guy on the planet. Not Mike Tyson, not Jet Li.
Meng is the toughest man in wrestling, and he could . . .

Bobby Heenan: Kill you more ways than my wife’s meatloaf.
This is from his former manager, someone who traveled with him
and went to bars with him. Oh no, we said bars didn’t we? The
one constant in the legend of Meng was that his fights usually
started at a bar. And then things got really interesting.

Sean Waltman: He fought a bar full of people and twelve cops. Had
to be maced before they could put cuffs on him.

Ted DiBiase: There was an incident in a bar in East St. Louis, which
is a real rough part of town . . . One of the guys got into it and there
were a lot of people involved and the police came. The big man had
had a few drinks that night. And he’s just trying to help and in the
process of trying to help he gets maced and handcuffed. Now they
handcuffed him behind his back and he broke the handcuffs. He
snapped them.


Reno: If he’s drunk, I would stay way the hell away from him. I’ve
seen him and Goldberg go at it. They were both hammered when
we were in England, and him and Goldberg went at it for fun. They
were both hammered and they were just in the middle of the lobby
rolling around. Then you got Ric Flair jumping on them, taking his
pants off and running around.

Hacksaw Jim Duggan: Meng has paid the price for having trouble
out in the bars, because you never win a fight in a bar. At the very
least you lose money. So I’ve seen Meng go, but I hate to give any
special stories, because I know about the statute of limitations.

Harley Race: There’s six police officers in Montreal . . . Meng bit one
guy’s nose off; chewed on it a little bit. I’m not really sure what happened
to the other guys. I know there’s one guy who had an ear
halfway tore off.

Bobby Heenan: Took his two fingers on his right hand, his index finger
and his trigger finger, and he reached into the guy’s mouth and
broke off his bottom teeth.

Jimmy Hart: In Hawaii one time, these policemen had come to break
up a fight and he beat both of them up. Before it was over it took
two or three police cars to come out and surround him.

Rick Steiner: I was in LA one time with him and he fought eight
cops, they shot him with mace and he closed his eyes and sucked it
in. He just opened his mouth and took in a deep breath. I mean, some
of the stuff he did was like “What the hell?”

Bill Apter: I saw him put a fist through a wall in a restaurant where
some fans were bothering him.

Alan Funk: I’ve seen the guy get smashed in the face with a chair
about fifty times and the guy never even had a lump on his head.
How the hell are you gonna hurt a guy like that?

Matt Borne: Here’s a 280-90 pound guy that’s lightning fast with
his feet. It’s a pretty scary thought.

Bob Orton Jr.: He trained in all kinds of self-defense . . . and he’s
six-one and about a strong as a bull. That’s probably a fella you
wouldn’t want pissed off at you.

Ted DiBiase: He is from the island of Tonga. He was sent to the
United States from Japan. What was he doing in Japan, you may be asking? Oh nothing
much, just fighting as a sumo wrestler! The man is a three dimensional
tough guy — and there are plenty of other legendary
stories about him that take place outside of the barroom. Notice
that many of these show he isn’t just a fighting machine, but that
he has a heart and respect for his fellow wrestlers.

[Stefano]

Chris Candido: He was talking to me, Tammy Sytch and Chris
Jericho. Up came Eric Bischoff and Greg Gagne and they walk right
in front of us and start talking to Meng. He just looks at them and
goes, “Hey!” And the entire locker room just froze. And I was like,
man, these just weren’t funny stories, apparently, he really is that
tough. And he says, “Apologize to my friends, I’m talking.” Everybody
shut up and let him talk.

Jacques Rougeau: I was working against him. It was me and
Raymond . . . Raymond gets in the ring, he has a spot with Tonga
and . . . for one reason or another Raymond tags me in, but he tags
me in too early. So I looked at Tonga . . . it must have been that time
of the month . . . I locked up with him and by the time I had the
chance to figure out what was going on he already had spinned me
around and suplexed me on my neck. He’s already on top of me like
in amateur wrestling. I let him do everything he wanted to. I’m
giving you my body . . . you do what you want with it.

Kevin Sullivan: One night I was booking . . . so I had to go tell these
guys that they were going to do a job . . . They said to me . . . “What
the fuck! This is not the right thing.” Now they got themselves
worked up, and they’re saying, “Well, I don’t know if we should do
this. This is bullshit, holy bullshit, blah, blah, blah.” Now it’s starting
to get a little worse. They said, “We’ll kick anybody’s ass here, blah,
blah, blah.” They keep going, “Why do you disrespect us? We’ll kill
anybody here.” So I said, “Wait a minute, I’ll go get Meng, he’ll handle
this for me.” They said, “No, no, no, whatever you want, we’ll do
whatever you want.”

Jake Roberts: I’ve seen him pull Jesse Barr’s eye out.

Kevin Sullivan: In
Puerto Rico . . . this
guy was working
digging a ditch and
they were walking
down the street and
Jesse went down the
street with Meng and
he kicked dirt on the
guy. Meng said,
“Brother, you
shouldn’t have done
that.” [Jesse] said,
“Fuck you, what are
you gonna do about
it?” Big mistake.
About three seconds
later Jesse didn’t
have an eye.


Jake Roberts: It was
really cool. But Haku
is such a good man,
he put it back in for
him.

We knew we had two more questions to ask. The first, why was it always Meng?

Meng: The fans, they challenged me when they had a few beers.
We walk into a bar or walk into a restaurant, we kind of take the
attention from the women. I take the attention from the local people.
We can walk in, ten wrestlers into a bar, and they’ll pick on me. It
was always me — and Arn Anderson will tell you that.

what about Jesse Barr? Did that even happen?

Meng: It happened. But it’s sad because I always considered the
boys as my family. They are my family. [When] things like that
happen, to me, it’s very sad. We should control it, but we’re still
human beings too.

Finally

Jake Roberts: If I had a gun, and I was sitting in a tank, and I had
one shell left, and Haku was three hundred yards away? He’s mine,
right? Well, the first thing I’m going to do is jump out of the tank and
shoot myself — because I don’t want to wound that son of a bitch
and piss him off.

[cheftim]

Some people are just born that way. Trouble always comes to them no matter what they do. This guy knew how to handle it. One thing Timmy doesn't understand here? A guy thats prone to violence and has had so many run-ins with the law. How didn't he ever serve any time? Stories say he's hurt and intimidated lots of people. But when you live a life like this you end up in jail. He might have been a mean SOB to some. But that doesn't make all these stories true. 

[littleguns]

I have heard similar stories where no one wanted to mess with him but he also had the biggest heart and took care of his friends.

I loved the battles of LOD and Powers of Pain

[Montague]

It sounds like most/all of the Samoan wrestlers over the years were good guys.

[cheftim]

It sounds like most/all of the Samoan wrestlers over the years were good guys.

I'm not sure if The Rock would be considered a Samoan? I saw this cable channel interview with him and the cast from that fast and furious movie. He really came across like a complete d!ck.

[Montague]

I'm not sure if The Rock would be considered a Samoan? I saw this cable channel interview with him and the cast from that fast and furious movie. He really came across like a complete d!ck.

His Mom is Samoan.
I can see him having an inflated ego, though - especially after his Tooth Fairy movie.

[OLE BIG]

I have probably told this before, but I used to know Scott Vick (Sick Boy) when I was around Atlanta, and got to be pretty good buddies with him.  I wish I hadn't lost his phone number, as he was a cool guy to hang around.

He fancied himself a pretty tough guy, and I have no reason to doubt him.  I asked him about tough wrestlers.  He said he would take on anyone, but if Meng got mad at him, his exact words were " I would run like hell and not stop anytime soon.  And thank goodness I am faster than him."

I would love to get back in touch with him, he had some great stories.

[The Showstoppa]

I have probably told this before, but I used to know Scott Vick (Sick Boy) when I was around Atlanta, and got to be pretty good buddies with him.  I wish I hadn't lost his phone number, as he was a cool guy to hang around.

He fancied himself a pretty tough guy, and I have no reason to doubt him.  I asked him about tough wrestlers.  He said he would take on anyone, but if Meng got mad at him, his exact words were " I would run like hell and not stop anytime soon.  And thank goodness I am faster than him."

I would love to get back in touch with him, he had some great stories.

Maybe if you hadn't killed so many brain cells with Steveweisers you could remember.... 

[Karl Kox]

The question I get asked the most is who was the legit tough guys that you didn't want to mess with, there's two,  Danny Hodge (y'all probably never heard of him ) and Meng.  But that's not saying he isn't a nice guy he just isn't going to take any shit off anyone.

[The Showstoppa]

The question I get asked the most is who was the legit tough guys that you didn't want to mess with, there's two,  Danny Hodge (y'all probably never heard of him ) and Meng.  But that's not saying he isn't a nice guy he just isn't going to take any shit off anyone.

Wasn't Hodge a former Olympic competitor?  I've always heard Harley Race was one that nobody messed with either.

[Karl Kox]

Yes he was. He's known for his incredibly strong grip. I've seen him break pliers easily even at his old age. 

[GraniteCityDon]

Yes he was. He's known for his incredibly strong grip. I've seen him break pliers easily even at his old age. 

I have mentioned him in depth in these discussions, has double tendons in his hands so that, basically, if he got hold of you then you wouldnt be going anywhere until he had finished bitching you. Jim Ross idolises the man and has a full belief, biased or not, that Hodge is the single toughest man the industry has ever seen.

[Karl Kox]

Last year at cauliflower ally club in Vegas.

[The Showstoppa]

Great pic KK.