Saul “Samu” Anoa’i recently revealed that The Bloodline Acknowledgement Ceremony, which was scheduled for WWE RAW Is XXX, was canceled due to a sudden change in creative plans.
The segment was originally set to feature Samu, Afa & Sika of The Wild Samoans, and Rikishi, but it was eventually scrapped and replaced by The Trial of Sami Zayn.
On the “Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling” podcast, Samu explained that The Bloodline Acknowledgement Ceremony was canceled due to Rikishi being ill and the rest of the members being unable to fly. Furthermore, the Anoa’i Family wanted to avoid overshadowing Roman Reigns with a segment about their own accomplishments.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On why the acknowledgment ceremony didn’t happen: “It was supposed to be Rikishi, myself, my dad, and my uncle to name a few. My dad couldn’t fly at the time and Rikishi had pneumonia at the time so, everything just got put on the back burner.”
On Reigns: “Of course [Roman is Head of The Table]. Listen, you brought these people [fans] to be able to pay attention, to bring it back. I mean, not that it has gotten boring or anything, just sometimes wrestling does that. It just flatlines for a while and then it makes a comeback all the time. Wrestling just does that. It’ll go dead and something else will pop up. Some new thing that will last five minutes and go away. Nothing’s really changed on the landscape or the format. So it’s, it’s pretty obvious you know, the ratings and everything like that, that Joe’s doing, it’s phenomenal, great business. I’m glad he has a lot of creative control.”
