A Moment in Time: The Massacre of The Samoan Gangsta Party

Brian Damage

After a rather unmemorable stint in the WWF as a part of the ‘Make A Difference’ Fatu angle in 1995, The Samoan Gangsta Party were brought into ECW in 1996. Originally named Gangstas in Paradise consisting of Sammy the Silk and ‘Big’ Matty Smalls, the tag team was immediately thrust into the world tag team title picture and feuded with one of ECW’s top teams in the Gangstas (Mustafa Saed and New Jack).

While the Samoans and the Gangtas attacked each other on several occasions, the two teams were scheduled to meet and do battle at the Heatwave ’96 event on July 13, 1996 at the ECW arena. Considering the build up with these two teams, it wouldn’t be off base to expect that this match was going to be a hard hitting, bloody, violent battle. The Samoan Gangsta Party and the Gangstas were in the opening match of that particular event.

The Samoans were the first to come out to a smattering of boos from the 1,500 ECW fans in attendance. As they made their way slowly to the ring, Sammy and Matty began trash talking to the fans at ringside. When they finally entered the ring….the Gangstas music hit which brought the fans to a frenzy.

The Gangstas wasted no time, as they rushed the ring with a garbage can filled with weapons and immediately attacked the Samoan Gangsta Party in the middle of the ring. From the onset, New Jack and Mustafa were controlling the fight and delivering nothing but offense on the Samoans. The Gangstas were hitting the Samoans with punches, kicks, garbage cans, crutches, frying pans and steel chairs.

Shockingly, the Samoans gave no offense themselves. They became nothing more than punching bags to the Gangstas wrath. Sammy was busted open and bled pretty heavily as New Jack pummeled him in the stands. Meanwhile, Matty was continually being hit with foreign objects by Mustafa.

The end result, was a referee stoppage which seemed very odd for an ECW match. The Samoan Gangsta Party were completely squashed by the Gangstas in what many fans called ‘The Massacre of the Samoan Gangsta Party.” The logic behind this squash match, which just lasted for about a minute and a half or so didn’t seem right. One minute the Samoans were being pushed hard, than the next they were being beat to a pulp by the Gangstas on such a high profile show.

Why were the Samoan Gangsta Party given zero offense? Did the Samoans fall out of favor with ECW owner Paul Heyman? Did the Samoans have heat backstage with the Gangstas? What was the story behind such a one sided beating? After my research did not turn up satisfactory results, I decided to go to one of the sources of this massive beatdown….Samu Anoa’i aka Sammy the Silk himself.

Samu: We at the time was helping out. We wanted the company to take over etc

Ring the Damn Bell: Understood, so you did them (ECW) a favor basically?

Samu: Ya, we was helping a friend in Paul e (Heyman)

So there was no backstage heat or bad blood between the Samoans and the Gangstas. It was all a favor, Samu felt he owed Paul Heyman for taking good care of them when he was acting as his manager back in the WCW days when Samu was a member of ‘The Samoan Swat Team.’ Mystery solved…?