Born Edward Fatu on March 28, 1973 in American Samoa, Umaga is a member of a famous wrestling family, Anoa'i. His two older brothers are also successful wrestlers. Umaga began training at the Wild Samoan Pro Wrestling Training Center operated by his uncles. As soon as he completed training, he began wrestling in World Xtreme Wrestling and World Wrestling Federation, but were quickly dropped from the WWF and sent to Heartland Wrestling Association. There, he formed a tag team with Solafa Fatu, Jr., his brother.
Going solo, Umaga worked for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling in June to November of 2003, when he formed a tag team with Sonny Siaki. Their team later fought America's Most Wanted (Chris Harris and James Storm). Leaving TNA for All Japan Pro Wrestling, Umaga again teamed up with Taiyo Kea, with whom he held the AJPW Unified World Tag Team Championship and won the World's Strongest Tag Team League tournament in 2004.
In 2005, Umaga returned to WWE and debuted on April 2006's Raw. He portrayed a destructive savage who could only be controlled by his manager, Armando Alejandro Estrada. They soon feuded with Ric Flair, whom he defeated at Backlash in late April.
Umaga later became the number one contender for the WWE Championship and placed into a feud with Champion John Cena over the title. However, Cena was able to defend his title at the New Year's Revolution pay-per-view.
In April 2007, Umaga became Vince McMahon's representative for the WrestleMania 23: Battle of the Billionaires with Donald Trump, where Umaga lost to Bobby Lashley. He subsequently got a match against the Intercontinental Champion, Jeff Hardy, whom he defeated for the title. During April's Backlash, Umaga teamed up with Vince and Shane McMahon and wrestled Bobby Lashley for the ECW World Championship in a Handicap match, thus winning the title for Vince. He also defeated both Mr. Kennedy and Carlito Colon in a Triple threat match at SummerSlam.
In the 2008 WWE Draft, Umaga was drafted from the RAW brand to Smackdown. He had a short-lived rivalry with Mr. Kennedy and The Big Show, which resulted in a torn PCL at a Smackdown event. In January 2009, Umaga returned to action and won a match against Jimmy Wang Yang.