In the 1980s World Wrestling Federation locker room, few names carried the kind of real-life fear that followed Haku, also known as King Tonga and later Meng. Stories of bar fights, broken bones, and one particularly infamous nose-biting incident turned him into a whispered measuring stick for toughness behind the curtain. So when Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake reportedly went to management to complain that Haku was working too stiff in the ring, the fallout did not play out in front of the cameras. It exploded in a locker room shower, with veterans frozen in place and Hulk Hogan himself forced to step between his close friend and one of the most feared men in the business.
Haku and Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake faced off multiple times in WWF rings during the late 1980s, but it was a locker room confrontation away from cameras that cemented their real-life feud. Photo Credit: WWE. Artwork by Pro Wrestling Stories.
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Haku and Brutus Beefcake: Islanders Era Tension Behind the Scenes
Haku and Tama, wrestling as The Islanders, often met Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake on the late-1980s WWF house show circuit, setting the stage for their infamous backstage confrontation. Photo Credit: WWE.
Working alongside Tama (Tonga Kid, Sam Fatu) as The Islanders, Haku frequently faced former WWF Tag Team Champions, The Dream Team, Brutus Beefcake and Greg “The Hammer” Valentine, managed by Johnny Valiant, on the WWF house show circuit during the winter of 1986 into early 1987.
Match records show the two teams working together as far back as November 1986, with the program running through WrestleMania III on March 29, 1987, after which Beefcake was replaced in The Dream Team by Dino Bravo. It was during this house show run that Beefcake began to feel that Haku’s physical style had crossed a line, and chose to address it through management rather than directly in the locker room.
How Brutus Beefcake’s Stiffness Complaint Put Haku on the Warpath
Tonga Kid (Sam Fatu) later revealed that Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake, then one half of The Dream Team alongside Greg "The Hammer" Valentine, went to WWF management to complain that Haku and The Islanders were hitting him too hard during their matches, setting in motion the locker room confrontation that followed. Photo Credit: WWE.
“In our matches, Haku was chopping him so hard, and I had kicked him really hard. I just liked picking on people because I knew they weren’t going to mess with me because of [Haku]. But I didn’t know he was going to chop him that hard. When [Haku] chops you, you can feel it in your soul.”
Rather than address the issue directly in the locker room, Beefcake went to Vince McMahon and asked to be moved to a different program. Tonga Kid had little sympathy for that approach:
“He goes back and tells Vince that he didn’t want to wrestle us. He wanted to wrestle another team because, the fact is, we were hitting him too hard. I said to him, if you can’t take a chop, then you are in the wrong business. Maybe you should find another job or something.”
What made the situation worse was that Beefcake did not stop at one complaint. He kept going back, and Haku was paying attention.
“He didn’t do it once. He did it again and again. He thought it was funny and he kept doing it over and over.”
Inside the WWF Locker Room Fight Between Haku and Brutus Beefcake
Multiple accounts describe Haku storming into the locker room showers after learning of Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake’s complaint, grabbing Beefcake by the throat and lifting him off the floor while other wrestlers looked on. Photo Credit: WWE.
Once Haku found out that Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake had gone to management rather than addressing the issue directly, he did not deliberate. Tonga Kid described the moment:
“Haku walked over to him and grabbed him by the throat in the shower and yanked him straight up and lifted him right up like three or four inches off the ground.”
Tonga Kid expanded on this in a later appearance on The Monte and the Pharaoh Show, adding a detail that underlines just how one-sided the confrontation was.
“Haku goes to the other side of the dressing room and grabs him by the neck, with one hand. He had him up with one hand. He was off the ground.”
The reaction from everyone else in the room said everything. Greg Valentine, who had been part of the very program with Beefcake that started the tension, stayed well clear. Tonga Kid noted with some amusement that this surprised nobody:
“Greg Valentine didn’t jump in. Greg didn’t want to be nowhere near Haku, that’s for sure!”
Nobody else moved either.
“When the rest of the guys ran over to help Beefcake, I am going to throw this out there: nobody came close. Trust me, if you saw the look Haku had in his eyes when he had Beefcake lifted up, nobody was going to come near him whatsoever if it wasn’t for me and maybe Pat Patterson.”
Hulk Hogan and WWF Management Break Up Haku’s Attack on Beefcake
Sources state that Hulk Hogan, Vince McMahon, and Pat Patterson entered the shower area to calm Haku and end his grip on Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake, underlining how serious the WWF locker room confrontation had become. Photo Credit: WWE
Pat Patterson tried first. Then agents. Then Vince McMahon himself entered the dressing room. According to Tonga Kid’s account, none of it moved Haku.
“Patterson tried, the agents tried. Vince tried. I think Vince was there. But Haku, he didn’t listen to anyone.”
It was only when Hulk Hogan walked in that the grip finally loosened. Tonga Kid recalled Hogan appealing directly to Haku and what Haku’s release actually conveyed.
“When Hogan came in, he said, ‘Brother,’ you know, sort of, ‘Brother, just…’ whatever. And then I guess Haku sort of dropped him like, ‘If you have something to say, complain – you come tell us.'”
“Of course, Hogan was going to run in there and help him. That was his boy. That was like his little boy that could go get him hamburgers and pick up all of his clothes or whatever you want edto call him, almost like his ‘butler,’ I guess. So of course Hogan was going to run over there.”
Even with the confrontation over, Tonga Kid made the underlying message plain: “I think he was upset because Beefcake went behind our back. Come on, man. If you have something to say, complain to us.”
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Why Haku Struck Back: Protecting Pride and the Business
Haku later addressed his reputation as one of wrestling’s toughest men, explaining that pride in representing Tonga and protecting professional wrestling influenced how he reacted when he felt disrespected by Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake. Photo Credit: WWE, The Flag Shop. Artwork by Pro Wrestling Stories.
To understand why a complaint made behind his back drew such a visceral reaction from Haku, it helps to understand how he viewed himself not as an intimidator, but as a man carrying something larger than himself into every room he entered. In a 2018 interview discussed by PWTorch, Haku addressed the toughness label that attaches to his name.
“I appreciate that, but I’m just hungry. 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.”
That pride extended to how he conducted himself in the locker room. Tonga Kid, who watched the dynamic from the inside every night, described Haku in a way that many outsiders would find difficult to reconcile with the shower confrontation, expressing, “Haku is one of the greatest, most humble persons you will ever meet. He has so much respect and he’s just so polite. That’s the part that people, well, those that know him, see.”
For Haku, going behind someone’s back to management was not just a breach of locker room etiquette. It was a challenge to the way The Islanders worked and, by extension, to who they were. Tonga Kid put it plainly:
Haku’s Nose-Biting Bar Fight and What Jake Roberts Saw
Haku, who later competed in WCW as Meng, has spoken openly about a bar fight near Baltimore-Washington International Airport that left his WWF peers with little doubt about what he was capable of outside the ring. Photo Credit: WWE.
The Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake locker room incident did not exist in isolation. Those who traveled with Haku had already seen what he was capable of when pushed, and the story that came up most often among his peers happened at a bar near Baltimore-Washington International Airport in the months that followed.
In a twist that shows how the WWF locker room really worked, it was Beefcake himself who was there that night, a few months after their own confrontation, and it was Beefcake who ended up keeping Haku out of serious trouble. He described the scene during his interview with Hannibal TV. The venue was a hotel bar called the Safari Club, and the trouble started when a group of local patrons began making comments, first at Beefcake and then at Haku.
Haku later gave his own account of the night in an interview covered in the Pro Wrestling Stories feature Meng: 15 Tales on Wrestling’s Toughest S.O.B., describing exactly who was with him and how the provocation unfolded.
“Me and Siva Afi went over, and there were lots of babyfaces there at the bar. So we went and sat in the other corner away from them. When they were ready to close, we had a few drinks, and on our way out, there were five guys just sitting there. Of course, the same thing came out: the ‘fake’ stuff. ‘Hey, are you guys with those wrestlers? The fake wrestlers on TV?'”
Haku’s response was swift. “I said, ‘Yeah. I’ll show you.’ I reached over without thinking, grabbed his face, and bit his nose off. Then the fight started. Me and Siva kind of cleaned house there and left. I’ll never forget it.”
Beefcake described what happened the moment the rest of the bar reacted. “It was going everywhere. Then this guy’s friends got involved, and the bar erupted. Chairs started flying, people were flying. So I wound up getting out of a side door. Cop cars were flying in from every direction. People were flying out the doors from every direction.”
Getting Haku out of the bar was only the beginning. Police tracked the group back to their hotel, and what followed came close to ending Haku’s WWF run entirely.
“Here it comes, twenty cops with their clubs,” Beefcake remembered. “It’s not going to be pretty. It’s going to get ugly. And he’s not going to give up. So we wound up having to negotiate a kind of surrender so they wouldn’t attack him and he wouldn’t attack them. And so peacefully he surrendered.”
Because none of the men who started the altercation pressed charges, Haku was released. Beefcake later described how narrowly a career-altering consequence was avoided.
“If I hadn’t went down and got him out of jail, he would have missed the town. He might have missed a couple towns. He could have even got fired because it would have went right back to the office. But I got him out, got him back to the hotel, we got back on the road. And nothing. It magically went away.”
Jake “The Snake” Roberts has also spoken about witnessing the nose bite firsthand. “I watched him bite a guy’s nose off in a bar. Bit the nose completely off,” Roberts told CYInterview.
In a separate appearance on The Snake Pit podcast, he recalled the detail that stuck with him. “[After he bit the nose off[, there was just two holes there. He bit the nose off and said, ‘Move your face.’ Twice. ‘Move your face.'”
Roberts has also separately recalled a different incident in Montreal in which he witnessed Haku body slam a police officer onto the concrete, a story that had already been making the rounds long before the Baltimore night.
That Montreal story was already part of Haku’s reputation before Tonga Kid ever tagged with him, and it set the tone for the entire partnership.
“He already had a reputation from Montreal, Canada about him beating up 20 cops or whatever. I was hearing this story from other people before I tagged with Haku. I tell you what, that was actually when I became loose, meaning it feels great to be with a bad guy.”
Brutus Beefcake on Haku’s Real-Life Danger After the Fight
Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake later described Haku as one of the most legitimately dangerous men he ever encountered in professional wrestling. Photo Credit: WWE.
Despite being on the receiving end of one of the most retold backstage confrontations in WWF history, Beefcake has never spoken about Haku with bitterness. When asked in his Hannibal TV interview about his time sharing the road with Haku, his answer was immediate. “Only like a couple of tag matches and stuff, but we were good friends. We were good friends.”
That friendship did not soften his assessment of what Haku was capable of when provoked. Asked about Haku’s reputation as the toughest man in the business, Beefcake did not budge. He was a legitimate fighter who could hurt multiple people with his bare hands,” a characterization that carries particular weight coming from someone who had personally felt Haku’s grip.
Tonga Kid, reflecting on what that reputation meant to him as a tag team partner, summed up the dynamic that made The Islanders so effective in a way few others could: “Me being a young kid, I loved it when I found out he’s the toughest man in the wrestling business. I was happy. I can do anything I want and get away with it!”
How Haku’s Confrontation With Brutus Beefcake Became Locker Room Legend
Decades after their infamous locker room confrontation, Haku and Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake are still connected by one of the most talked-about backstage stories in WWF history. Photo Credit: Haku / @thekinghaku, Boca Raton Championship Wrestling.
Almost forty years on, what happened between Haku and Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake in that WWF locker room shower still gets talked about, not because it was the most violent backstage incident in wrestling history, but because of what the details reveal about how that locker room actually worked.
Beefcake went over someone’s head. Haku found out. And then every veteran in the room, agents, road agents, and Vince McMahon himself, stood and watched without intervening. It took Hulk Hogan, the most protected man in the entire company, calling Haku “brother” before the grip let go.
That sequence tells you everything about the unwritten hierarchy of the WWF in 1987. Complaints went through the right channels, or they did not go at all. Stiffness was answered with stiffness. And the man everyone feared most was, by his own account and those who traveled with him, one of the most humble and respectful people in the locker room when nobody pushed him.
For Beefcake, the experience did not end the friendship. He pulled Haku out of a bar fight later that same year and negotiated his release from police custody before sunrise. For Haku, the story became part of a reputation he never sought but has carried with quiet dignity ever since.
In professional wrestling, the most dangerous place is rarely the ring. Beefcake found that out in a shower in 1987.
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If you love movies and pro wrestling, don’t sleep on this one.
Grindhouse, Arthouse, and Wrestling Flicks by Pro Wrestling Stories Senior Editor Evan Ginzburg dives into the fascinating world where cinema and wrestling collide. Packed with hundreds of reviews, hidden gems, and fascinating turns from wrestlers on the big screen, it covers everyone from André the Giant and Roddy Piper to CM Punk, DDP, Chris Jericho, Pat Roach, and The Rock. Smart, passionate, and endlessly browsable, it’s the kind of book fans will keep returning to. Grab your copy today!
