When Jacob Fatu made his WWE debut last year he was immediately established as a force to be reckoned with. Fatu rode that wave of momentum to a WWE United States Championship win at WrestleMania, and he then went on to break away from Solo Sikoa and his stable over the summer. It seemed that Fatu was on his way to becoming one of the top stars in the company, but he hasn’t wrestled a match on TV since the August 15th episode of Friday Night SmackDown.
Recently WWE Hall of Famer Rikishi discussed Jacob Fatu’s booking on his Off The Top podcast, and he questioned why Fatu’s momentum has disappeared over the last few months.
“A lot of people say, ‘What happened to Jacob?’ I don’t know. Jacob come out, he’s steaming, they got everything behind him. They’re just lighting this kid up on fire. Everything they threw at this kid, he came correct. He stand on business and all of a sudden, poof, like a Houdini move.
I’ve always said this from the beginning that if you book Jacob with the right people, you gonna get money out this kid here because the thing that he does in the ring, man. I still don’t think that they have booked him with the right people and lit gasoline up behind him to really push this thing to make it work. It’s just been this little tease. We see Jacob’s skills. We see his talent. We see his popularity just catching on fire. But there’s still not… you know what I mean?”