Samoan Joe
Encyclopedia
Joseph "Joe" Afamasaga is a retired New Zealand
professional wrestler, best known by his ringname Samoan Joe, who competed in the Australasia
n and South Pacific region
during the 1970s and early 1980s. He was a popular "fan favourite"
while wrestling for Steve Rickard
's All Star-Pro Wrestling and frequently appeared on the long-running wrestling television programme On the Mat
. He later travelled to the United States
where he had a brief stint in the American Wrestling Association
before his retirement in 1989. In 2009, Afamasaga was ranked #10 by New Zealand Herald sports columnist Chris Rattue as one of his "Top 10" favourite wrestlers of all-time.
. He quickly became very well known throughout the country while accompanying the promotion on its national tours as far north as Whangarei
as well as his regular appearances on the wrestling programme On the Mat
.
By 1977, he had established himself as one of New Zealand's most popular "fan favourites"
often appearing on the undercard or in main event
s against native and foreign "heel" wrestlers
alike. That year, he teamed with Mark Lewin
and Siva Afi in a losing effort against Bruiser Brody, Bruno Bekkar
and King Curtis Iaukea
in Wellington, New Zealand on 12 September 1977. Other opponents included Merv Fortune, "Cowboy" Billy Wright, Lars Anderson
and Larry O'Day
as well as forming a successful tag team
with fellow Samoan Lu Leota. He and Fortune also had a memorable mixed tag team match with midget wrestlers Coconut Willie and Little Kevin respectively.
He was among the top New Zealand stars to appear at the Gay World Stadium, as did American wrestlers Killer Karl Krupp
, The Masked Assassin
and King Kamaka
, during ASPW's tour of Singapore
in May 1982, along with wrestlers from the United States, West Germany, Australia, Samoa and South America. When the NWA New Zealand Heavyweight Championship
was vacated the following year, Afamasaga entered a championship tournament and lost to Rip Morgan
in the finals held in Auckland
on 8 September 1983. In his final New Zealand TV appearance, Afamasaga wrestled with Larry O'Day, Mel Fortuna, Tony Rickard and Rip Morgan in the final episode of On the Mat which aired on 23 July 1984.
After the cancellation of On the Mat, Afamasaga moved on to Australia where he found some success before heading to the United States. He spent the last year of his career in the American Wrestling Association
, mainly used as a preliminary wrestler against opponents such as Brian Knobbs
and The Rock 'n' Roll Express (Ricky Morton
and Robert Gibson
), before retiring around 1989. Afamasaga subsequently relocated to Australia where he joined the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and later completed a Mormon mission
. He later settled in Victoria
where he is currently serving on the high council of a Stake presidency. During the 2009 Samoa tsunami
, he used Twitter
to report on conditions in his homeland and, according to his aunt
, claimed that "the body count is in the hundreds" but that his family had escaped danger by reaching higher ground.
Afamasaga appeared in both episodes of On the Mat were chosen to be shown on NZ On Screen
in early-2010; the first was a tag team match between he and Lu Leota against Sweet William and Brute Miller
(29 July 1980) and the second against Johnny Garcia
(17 March 1981). On 9 April 2010, Scoop.co.nz reported that On the Mat ranked #3 among the top 10 most watched videos on NZ on Screen.
A number of New Zealand media personalities have referred to Afamasaga as their favourite wrestlers while watching "On the Mat" as children. Wallace Chapman
, co-host of the political interview show Back Benches
, claimed that his "favourite TV moment" was watching Afamasaga among other "On the Mat" stars as a child. Jason Conlan
, longtime cartoonist for Pro Wrestling Illustrated
, has also claimed that Afamasaga was his favourite wrestler. In March 2009, sports columnist Chris Rattue of the New Zealand Herald named several former "On the Mat" stars including Afamasaga as among his "Top 10" favourite wrestlers of all-time.
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
professional wrestler, best known by his ringname Samoan Joe, who competed in the Australasia
Australasia
Australasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by Charles de Brosses in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes...
n and South Pacific region
Oceania
Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...
during the 1970s and early 1980s. He was a popular "fan favourite"
Face (professional wrestling)
In professional wrestling, a babyface or face or in simple words, a fan favorite is a character who is portrayed as a heroic relative to the heel wrestlers, who are analogous to villains...
while wrestling for Steve Rickard
Steve Rickard
Sydney Mervin "Merv" Batt , best known by his ring name Steve Rickard, is a retired New Zealand professional wrestler, trainer and promoter...
's All Star-Pro Wrestling and frequently appeared on the long-running wrestling television programme On the Mat
On the Mat
On the Mat was a professional wrestling television program for the National Wrestling Alliance-affiliated All Star Pro-Wrestling , or simply NWA New Zealand, that aired on Television New Zealand's TV2 from 1975 to 1984...
. He later travelled to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
where he had a brief stint in the American Wrestling Association
American Wrestling Association
The American Wrestling Association was an American professional wrestling promotion based in Minneapolis, Minnesota that ran from 1960 to 1991. It was owned and founded by Verne Gagne and Wally Karbo...
before his retirement in 1989. In 2009, Afamasaga was ranked #10 by New Zealand Herald sports columnist Chris Rattue as one of his "Top 10" favourite wrestlers of all-time.
Career
Joe Afamasaga began wrestling in New Zealand during the mid-1970s and soon joined All Star-Pro Wrestling, then on the rise, under Steve RickardSteve Rickard
Sydney Mervin "Merv" Batt , best known by his ring name Steve Rickard, is a retired New Zealand professional wrestler, trainer and promoter...
. He quickly became very well known throughout the country while accompanying the promotion on its national tours as far north as Whangarei
Whangarei
Whangarei, pronounced , is the northernmost city in New Zealand and the regional capital of Northland Region. Although commonly classified as a city, it is officially part of the Whangarei District, administered by the Whangarei District Council a local body created in 1989 to administer both the...
as well as his regular appearances on the wrestling programme On the Mat
On the Mat
On the Mat was a professional wrestling television program for the National Wrestling Alliance-affiliated All Star Pro-Wrestling , or simply NWA New Zealand, that aired on Television New Zealand's TV2 from 1975 to 1984...
.
By 1977, he had established himself as one of New Zealand's most popular "fan favourites"
Face (professional wrestling)
In professional wrestling, a babyface or face or in simple words, a fan favorite is a character who is portrayed as a heroic relative to the heel wrestlers, who are analogous to villains...
often appearing on the undercard or in main event
Main Event
Main Event is Australia's only pay-per-view channel. It transmits through Foxtel, Optus Television and Austar, which jointly own the channel...
s against native and foreign "heel" wrestlers
Heel (professional wrestling)
In professional wrestling, a heel is a villain character. In non-wrestling jargon, heels are the "bad guys" in professional wrestling; the term heel coming from the term take to you heels, which means to run away which heel champions tend to do to avoid losing their titles.storylines...
alike. That year, he teamed with Mark Lewin
Mark Lewin
-Career:Mark Lewin broke into wrestling in the early '50s and had great early success in a matinee-idol babyface tag team with Don Curtis, headlining in major territories like New York and Chicago. The team's brief heel turn was a shock to its many fans...
and Siva Afi in a losing effort against Bruiser Brody, Bruno Bekkar
Bruno Bekkar
Brian Ashby is a retired New Zealand professional wrestler and trainer, known by his ring name Bruno Bekkar, who competed for Steve Rickard's All Star-Pro Wrestling and for other promoters in New Zealand and Australia from the early 1960s until his retirement in 1992...
and King Curtis Iaukea
King Curtis Iaukea
Curtis Piehau Iaukea, III was a professional wrestler better known as King Curtis Iaukea. Iaukea won championships in several of the major regional US promotions, both as a single and in various tag team combinations, during the 1960s. He then competed in the World Wrestling Federation where he...
in Wellington, New Zealand on 12 September 1977. Other opponents included Merv Fortune, "Cowboy" Billy Wright, Lars Anderson
Lawrence Heinemi
Larry Heinemi is a retired professional wrestler better known by the name of Lars Anderson. His career spans over a decade of performing in National Wrestling Alliance territories as well as American Wrestling Association .-Career:...
and Larry O'Day
Larry O'Dea
Larry Davies was a professional wrestler best known as Larry O'Dea. He was one half of the tag team known as "The Australians"....
as well as forming a successful tag team
Tag team
Tag team professional wrestling is a variation in which matches are contested between teams of multiple wrestlers. A tag team may comprise two wrestlers who normally wrestle in singles competition, but more commonly are made of established teams who wrestle regularly as a unit and have a team name...
with fellow Samoan Lu Leota. He and Fortune also had a memorable mixed tag team match with midget wrestlers Coconut Willie and Little Kevin respectively.
He was among the top New Zealand stars to appear at the Gay World Stadium, as did American wrestlers Killer Karl Krupp
Killer Karl Krupp
George Momberg , better known by the ring name Killer Karl Krupp, was a Dutch-born professional wrestler famous during the 1970s and early 1980s.-Early life:...
, The Masked Assassin
Jody Hamilton
Joseph "Jody" Hamilton is an American retired professional wrestler and current wrestling promoter and trainer. In his active days Hamiltion was best known as known as one half of the tag team The Assassins where he was called "Assassin #1"...
and King Kamaka
Tor Kamata
McRonald Kamaka was an American/Canadian professional wrestler known by the ring name Tor Kamata. He won several Heavyweight and Tag Team championships, including one World Tag Team title. He was a classic "bad guy" wrestler...
, during ASPW's tour of Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
in May 1982, along with wrestlers from the United States, West Germany, Australia, Samoa and South America. When the NWA New Zealand Heavyweight Championship
NWA New Zealand Heavyweight Championship
The NWA New Zealand Heavyweight Championship is the primary singles title in the NWA-affiliated wrestling promotion NWA New Zealand. It is the first heavyweight championship in New Zealand and one of the oldest in the world. It was first won by Gisborne Katene who defeated Frank Findlay in 1919...
was vacated the following year, Afamasaga entered a championship tournament and lost to Rip Morgan
Rip Morgan
Mike Morgan is a former professional wrestler from New Zealand who competed in the National Wrestling Alliance, World Championship Wrestling and World Class Championship Wrestling best known as Rip Morgan. Best known as one half of the New Zealand Militia in WCW with Jack Victory...
in the finals held in Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
on 8 September 1983. In his final New Zealand TV appearance, Afamasaga wrestled with Larry O'Day, Mel Fortuna, Tony Rickard and Rip Morgan in the final episode of On the Mat which aired on 23 July 1984.
After the cancellation of On the Mat, Afamasaga moved on to Australia where he found some success before heading to the United States. He spent the last year of his career in the American Wrestling Association
American Wrestling Association
The American Wrestling Association was an American professional wrestling promotion based in Minneapolis, Minnesota that ran from 1960 to 1991. It was owned and founded by Verne Gagne and Wally Karbo...
, mainly used as a preliminary wrestler against opponents such as Brian Knobbs
Brian Knobbs
Brian Yandrisovitz , better known as Brian Knobbs, is an American professional wrestler, best known as one half of the tag team The Nasty Boys along with Jerry Sags.-The Nasty Boys:...
and The Rock 'n' Roll Express (Ricky Morton
Ricky Morton
Richard Wendell "Ricky" Morton is an American professional wrestler who has worked for such wrestling organizations as Jim Crockett Promotions, the American Wrestling Association, Extreme Championship Wrestling, World Championship Wrestling, the World Wrestling Federation and Total Nonstop Action...
and Robert Gibson
Reuben Kane
Robert Gibson is a professional wrestler. He is famous as half of the tag team known as Rock 'N Roll Express, with Ricky Morton.-Early career:Cain started wrestling as Robert Gibson in 1977...
), before retiring around 1989. Afamasaga subsequently relocated to Australia where he joined the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and later completed a Mormon mission
Missionary (LDS Church)
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is one of the most active modern practitioners of missionary work, with over 52,000 full-time missionaries worldwide, as of the end of 2010...
. He later settled in Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
where he is currently serving on the high council of a Stake presidency. During the 2009 Samoa tsunami
2009 Samoa earthquake
The 2009 Samoa earthquake was an 8.1 Mw submarine earthquake that took place in the Samoan Islands region at 06:48:11 local time on September 29, 2009 . At a magnitude of 8.1, it was the largest earthquake of 2009....
, he used Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
to report on conditions in his homeland and, according to his aunt
Aunt
An aunt is a person who is the sister or sister-in-law of a parent. A man with an equivalent relationship is an uncle, and the reciprocal relationship is that of a nephew or niece....
, claimed that "the body count is in the hundreds" but that his family had escaped danger by reaching higher ground.
Afamasaga appeared in both episodes of On the Mat were chosen to be shown on NZ On Screen
NZ On Screen
NZ On Screen is an online showcase of archival New Zealand television and film. The website is fully funded by NZ On Air and provides free worldwide access to NZ-produced television, film and music videos. Content is streamed and the webpages provide authoritative background information.The site...
in early-2010; the first was a tag team match between he and Lu Leota against Sweet William and Brute Miller
Butch Miller (wrestler)
Butch Miller is a retired professional wrestler best known as one half of the tag team known as "The Sheepherders" on the independent scene and in the National Wrestling Alliance and as one half of The Bushwhackers in the WWF.-Career:Butch Miller started wrestling for NWA New Zealand in 1964 where...
(29 July 1980) and the second against Johnny Garcia
John Garea
John "Johnny" Garea is a semi-retired New Zealand professional wrestler, known by his ring name Johnny Garcia, who competed in Steve Rickard's All Star-Pro Wrestling, World Championship Wrestling and occasionally for the World Wrestling Federation during the 1970s and 80s...
(17 March 1981). On 9 April 2010, Scoop.co.nz reported that On the Mat ranked #3 among the top 10 most watched videos on NZ on Screen.
A number of New Zealand media personalities have referred to Afamasaga as their favourite wrestlers while watching "On the Mat" as children. Wallace Chapman
Wallace Chapman
Wallace Chapman is a New Zealand radio and television host.His shows include:* Back Benches * The Wallace Chapman Drive Chapman began his broadcasting career while a student at the University of Otago with student radio station Radio One...
, co-host of the political interview show Back Benches
Back Benches
Back Benches is a New Zealand political interview show, presented by Wallace Chapman and Damian Christie. It is filmed at the 'Backbencher' pub across the road from Parliament Buildings in Wellington, at 9.10 pm Wednesday nights , and reshown on Thursday mornings, Friday nights, and Saturday mornings...
, claimed that his "favourite TV moment" was watching Afamasaga among other "On the Mat" stars as a child. Jason Conlan
Jason Conlan
Jason Conlan is a New Zealand cartoonist, best known under the pseudonym Mister J, who is the creator of Pro Wrestling Illustrated's monthly cartoon strip "On the Mat"...
, longtime cartoonist for Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Pro Wrestling Illustrated is a professional wrestling magazine. PWI is currently based in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania and published by Kappa Publishing Group.-History:The first issue of Pro Wrestling Illustrated was released in 1979...
, has also claimed that Afamasaga was his favourite wrestler. In March 2009, sports columnist Chris Rattue of the New Zealand Herald named several former "On the Mat" stars including Afamasaga as among his "Top 10" favourite wrestlers of all-time.