Talla Tonga’s connection to Haku goes way deeper than wrestling bloodlines and WWE television. Long before Haku was standing ringside while Talla and Tama Tonga handled business in WWE, he stepped up in a much bigger way — helping raise Talla when his biological mother couldn’t afford to take care of him.
Talla opened up about the deeply personal part of his childhood during an appearance on Cheap Heat Live on WWE radio, explaining that Haku wasn’t originally his father at all. Haku and his wife were actually his uncle and aunt.
Talla was born in Tonga, and his biological mother is the sister of Haku’s wife. Things got rough financially while she was trying to take care of Talla and Tama, and eventually the family had to make a tough call.
“My biological mom, her sister is Haku’s wife, so they’re actually my uncle and aunt. But my mom couldn’t take care of me. Me and Tama have the same mom, and she couldn’t take care of me and Tama at the time. She was just struggling to make ends meet.”
That’s where Haku’s family stepped in. Talla said his aunt offered to take the boys in and give their mother time to get back on her feet.
“My aunt was like, ‘We can take them in. We can take care of them for as long as you need, just for you to get back on your feet.’”
Talla was only four years old when he left Tonga and moved to Florida in 1995. And yeah, he remembers it. The future WWE star admitted those first days were brutal because his mother was suddenly gone and he was living with another family.
“I remember that whole thing. I just remember it was just a week of crying because my mom had left and I was moving in with a new family.”
But that sadness didn’t define his childhood. Talla said he quickly found himself surrounded by brothers, a sister and two people who treated him like their own child. Before long, there wasn’t some distinction between his old family and new family. This was simply home. Talla said the painful part of the move became a distant memory pretty quickly.
“I never felt that loneliness because I had my brothers, I added a new brother, I added a new sister, and then I have two parents now.”
“It was just like a short, painful memory, and then all of a sudden it was just, ‘This is my family,’ and I never looked back since.”
Years later, Haku wasn’t “Uncle Haku” anymore. By the time Talla was around 12 or 13, he decided the two people raising him had earned different titles. Mom and Dad.
“Out of respect, probably when I was 12 or 13, I just started calling them Mom and Dad because they’ve been taking care of me for so long. They took care of everything. Of course, they’re my guardians, my parents. So, out of respect, they became my mom and dad.”
And Talla made one thing crystal clear — this isn’t a story about him trashing his biological mother. He still considers her his mom and said there is no bad blood between them. But when it comes to Haku and his aunt, Talla has a different level of respect because they were the ones who stepped in and raised him.
“I still have my mom out in Frisco. There’s no love lost there, but all the respect right now is just for, you know, Haku and auntie.”
Fast-forward all these years and the story has come full circle in a pretty wild way. Talla is now a WWE Tag Team Champion alongside Tama Tonga while Haku stands right there at ringside with them. The guy who once opened his home to a four-year-old kid is now sharing WWE television with the man that kid grew up to become.
What do you think about Talla Tonga opening up about Haku stepping in to raise him? Did this story change the way you look at their WWE pairing? Drop your thoughts and leave your feedback in the comments.
