Friday night, Tama Tonga answered the question all loyal followers of The Bloodline have been asking: is he going to join the WWE to stand with The Bloodline? Tonga took out Jimmy Uso with a sneak attack and held Uso down to be publicly executed via Samoan Spike from Solo Sikoa. In a backstage segment shortly after the assault, Tonga leaned towards a fearful Paul Heyman’s face, and with just two centimeters of personal space to spare, mentioned the “orders from the Tribal Chief.” Presumably, this means that Tonga was operating under the orders of Roman Reings (or is he?) much to Heyman’s shock.

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Isn’t it crazy how Tonga can go from seven-time IWGP Tag Team Champion, four time NEVER Openweight champion, and one-time Ring of Honor World Tag Team Champion, just to play second fiddle to Roman Reigns (or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, or Sikoa, or whoever is calling themselves the Tribal Chief now)? This happened with Sikoa too — as soon as they’re absorbed into The Bloodline, individuals with a promising career path suddenly need to abandon whatever flavor they had just to become another cog in The Bloodline’s machine. Sikoa’s transition from street fighter on “NXT” to “guy who Samoan Spikes people at the behest of others” on the main roster is a downgrade that needs to be studied, and Tonga is basically following in the same steps.

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Tonga and Sikoa are just bodies. They don’t have flavor, they don’t have personalities, and Sikoa is just now starting to have ambitions of his own 587 days after his main roster debut. Things are not looking great for Tonga, character-wise. (And maybe even career-wise, because where does he go when The Bloodline inevitably implodes if he doesn’t have a character to stand on)). I understand that Tonga is new to WWE, and that his allegiance to The Bloodline is sound and logical. Still, I hate, hate, hate how that association with The Bloodline — as good as it is for his career, objectively — means that he is now just some guy who works for his family. It wouldn’t have killed WWE to give him a personality. It wouldn’t have even killed WWE to book him outside The Bloodline — Naomi is literally married to Jimmy Uso, and yet she is still operating as her own woman with her own, glowy personality.

WWE has reduced a multi-time champion, renowned tag-team wrestler, and international star into Solo Sikoa 2: Electric Boogaloo. Yippee.

Written by Angeline Phu