Haku On Why He Credits AEW's Tony Schiavone For The Tongan Death Grip

Haku aka Meng was a staple on WWF and WCW programming in the 80s and 90s and won championships in both promotions. He's had a 40 year career in the industry and was asked what his favorite wrestling moment is by our Andy Malnoske.

"Just being in wrestling itself. It makes me who I am and lets me take care of my family back home in the island, besides the coconuts and the papaya," said Haku. "It's great being in wrestling and I'm wishing all the best for the next generation, young ones coming up. It's a great business."

In WCW Meng's finisher was the Tongan Death Grip which he used to win the Hardcore Championship. He talked about the origin of the move and who gets credit for creating it.

"[Tony] Schiavone made the Tongan Death Grip better than I did. He was the one who named it and he gets the credit," revealed Haku.

Ask any wrestler from Haku's time and they will point to him as being perhaps the toughest guy in wrestling history. He talked about being bestowed that title and what inspired hm.

"I appreciate that but I'm just hungry," said Haku. "I needed to take care of things and responsibilities and the country was on my shoulders coming from the Kingdom of Tonga. I had pride and nobody knew where the heck Tonga was. It's right there in the South Pacific but that was the big thing about it."

Haku's full interview with Wrestling Inc aired as part of Friday's episode of our WINCLY podcast. It can be heard via the embedded audio player at the bottom of this post, or in the video above. You can check out past episodes of the WINCLY here. Subscribe to Wrestling Inc. Audio on iTunes or Google Play. Listen to the show via Spotify here or through TuneIn here.