Sione Vailahi

Nukuʻalofa, Kingdom of Tonga

Biography

Sione Havea Vailahi is a Tongan professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, The Barbarian. He is best known for his various stints with The National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and WWE and for being a part of tag teams The Powers of Pain with The Warlord and The Faces of Fear with Meng. His first national exposure was in the NWA territory Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP), where The Powers of Pain held the NWA World Six-Man Tag Team Championship until they departed the company in 1988 and joined WWE, where they competed in the tag team division until the team was quietly split in 1990. The Barbarian then competed as a singles wrestler until departing in 1992 and returning to WCW, where he became one half of the final WCW United States Tag Team Champions with Dick Slater. During this time, The Barbarian challenged Ron Simmons for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship at Halloween Havoc '92. He left WCW in 1993 and returned to the WWF in 1994 as Headshrinker Sione to form The New Headshrinkers with Fatu. He left the company in 1995 and made a second return to WCW, where he briefly reunited with The Warlord as The Super Assassins. The Barbarian would then join Meng to form The Faces of Fear and become a part of factions Dungeon of Doom and The First Family.

Movies

WCW Monday Nitro was a weekly professional wrestling telecast produced by World Championship Wrestling, created by Ted Turner and Eric Bischoff. The show aired Monday nights on TNT, going head-to-head with the World Wrestling Federation's Monday Night Raw from September 4, 1995 to March 26, 2001. Production ceased shortly after WCW was purchased by the WWF. The debut of Nitro began the Monday Night Wars, a ratings battle between the WWF and WCW that lasted for almost six years and saw each company resort to cutthroat tactics to try to compete with the competition. In mid-1996, Nitro began to draw better ratings than Raw based on the strength of the nWo storyline, an anarchist wrestling stable that wanted to take over WCW. Nitro continued to beat Raw for 84 consecutive weeks, forcing WWE owner Vince McMahon to change the way he did business. As the nWo storyline grew stagnant, fan interest in the storyline waned, and Raw began to edge out Nitro in the ratings. The turning point for the organizations came during the January 4, 1999 broadcast of Nitro, during which lead commentator Tony Schiavone gave away the results of matches for that night's Raw broadcast. As Raw was taped and Nitro was live, Bischoff believed that knowing the outcome would dissuade viewers from watching the program. Excited by the prospect of seeing perennial WWF underdog Mick Foley win the WWF Championship, a large number of Nitro viewers changed channels to watch Raw, switching back to Nitro after Foley won the title. From that week forward, Raw beat Nitro in the ratings by a significant amount, and WCW was never able to regain the success it once had.

More info
WCW Monday Nitro
1995