Rikishi’s time with WWE could have ended during the early 2000s with Vince McMahon reportedly considering letting him go from the company. Jim Cornette revealed this on his Drive-Thru podcast and how it ended up not happening and ended up hiring three more of his family members:

“I think he’d been The Sultan for a while and then they’d done something else… he’d gone through two or three gimmicks, he’d been there for a few years and Vince one day said, ‘We’ve got to cut Fatu.’ So, they called Fatu to the office – they didn’t do it on the phone back in those days – Vince was going to talk to him personally.”

“Afa comes with Fatu, and so did Rosey and Jamal. All four of them come in, they had the meeting with Vince and I see them leave and went in and talked to Bruce Prichard about something. I said, ‘Did Vince tell Fatu?’ He said, ‘Nope. He not only didn’t fire Fatu, he hired the other three.'”