New WWE signing Tanga Loa ‘botches his debut’ as damning ringside footage emerges

Tanga Loa has been accused of 'botching' his return to WWE after embarrassing ringside footage appeared on social media.

Following the historic success of WrestleMania XL last month, it feels like WWE is riding the crest of a wave at the moment.

With a new generation of stars mixing it with the big guns of yesteryear to wow audiences both in the United States and across the world, the biggest wrestling organisation on the planet is surging in popularity.

Plenty of credit has to go to Paul Levesque - also known by his ring name, Triple H - who as WWE's chief content officer and head of creative has produced some fascinating storylines.

One of those played out on Saturday evening, during WWE Backlash France in Lyon.

With Kevin Owens pinning down Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa appeared from under the ring, pulled the referee off the ring and saved his brother from defeat.

Tanga Loa had not not appeared in WWE since he left the organisation in 2014, and since then has performed with Total Non-Stop Action Wrestling and New Japan Pro-Wrestling.

After his intervention the two brothers and Solo Sikoa went on to defeat Owens and Randy Orton in the tag team street fight, with Tanga joining The Bloodline.

However, while everything appeared to run smoothly, ringside footage of Tanga's dramatic entrance lead to calls that he 'botched' his big moment.

The footage shows that the referee began to thrown himself out of the ring before Tanga actually grabbed him, because the wrestler missed his cue to intervene.

Had the referee not done so, then he would have slammed the matt for a third time and Owens would have claimed victory.

The footage went viral on social media and fans weren't impressed.

"He’s gonna blow a spot in his debut match, its inevitable," one fan said of Tanga, while another argued: "There’s at least 5 active Samoans or Tongans that should’ve got this spot before him."

One fan reasoned that Tanga "probably couldn’t hear and missed his cue a bit," while another wasn't bothered by the blip in the slightest.

"The TV angle sold it perfectly," the fan wrote on X. "It wasn’t shown live on the PPV, so it’s not an issue to the viewer at home. Matters none."

Featured Image Credit: Wrestling Phil (TikTok)

Topics: WWE, Wrestling, Fan Reactions

Alex Brotherton

Alex Brotherton is a journalist at SPORTbible. He has previously worked with publications including the Manchester Evening News, GOAL and BBC Sport. He is a football fanatic, but also dabbles in tennis and American football. He can often be found watching dreadful non-league football.

@alex_brotherton