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RIP Sabu.

The Natural
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HumanChessgame

HumanChessgame

Posted
Posted

Has anyone else had such a lengthy and well-regarded career despite rarely if ever cutting a promo or doing interviews?

Cobra Commander

Cobra Commander

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, HumanChessgame said:

Has anyone else had such a lengthy and well-regarded career despite rarely if ever cutting a promo or doing interviews?

well, Sabu's uncle, the Sheik..

  • Like 3
odessasteps

odessasteps

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, Cobra Commander said:

well, Sabu's uncle, the Sheik..

And Abby to an extent. The Stomper outside of Calgary. Probably a number of Japanese stars in the US (Kabuki, Muta as Muta). 

  • Like 2
Peck

Peck

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Posted

Adding on to my story I posted earlier(mods, feel free to move it from the RIP thread to this one), I snapped this pic of him once we landed and, in true Sabu fashion, he gave absolutely zero fucks about the normal deplaning process. He was getting off of that thing as soon as he possibly could.

https://i.postimg.cc/YCRmMLwH/DION9621.jpg

Infinit

Infinit

Posted
Posted

Truly a legendary talent. The first time I heard of Sabu was in a PWI article in summer 92 about his barbed wire fire tag match with The Sheik vs Onita and Goto in FMW. That spectacle really stuck with me as a young fan. And years later I had a brief interaction on social media with Sabu about that match.  RIP 🙏🏽 ❤️

 

  • Haha 21
StevieNippz

StevieNippz

Posted
Posted (edited)

My first two Sabu matches I saw were the barbed wire match with Terry Funk and that ladder match with Sandman. That was over 20 years ago and I still talk about those matches. I remember loving the Rey Mysterio match at One Night Stand even though I thought it was a bit silly to end in a No Contest considering the stuff Sabu bounced back from in the past. Last time I saw him was in AEW as a guest enforcer. Is his last match worth checking out? 

 

 

Edit:

Just watched that Stretcher match versus Rob Van Dam and it was amazing. Sometimes I forget the energy of that crowd too.

Edited by StevieNippz
Watched the link to the Stretcher match
  • Like 1
jaedmc

jaedmc

Posted
Posted

Some more thoughts:

My cousin and I used to wrestle in our backyard when we were kids, and I remember going to Wal-Mart with him and buying 4XL Green Jogging pants for his 13 year old skinny ass just so he could dress up as his super original character... UBAS. He even bought white tube socks and pulled them over the bottoms of jogging pants just to complete "the look".

I can tell you for sure that Sabu was one of our favorite wrestlers for months before we ever saw him wrestle. We read about his exploits in PWI, and with the aid of whatever photos they had, we imagined wild unhinged anarchy.

I remember when we finally ordered Born to Be Wired, and when it came in the mail we could only stare at the tape like this rare artifact. We were totally unsure if we were ready (worthy?) to finally see this Legend we'd built up in our head. Maybe we were scared it was all a work, and we'd be left disappointed.

But he lived up to all of it. 

He was the guy they said he was in the magazines. It wasn't tall tales. It wasn't a gimmick. He did tear his fucking arm to pieces on barbed wire. He did break his jaw with Sandman and taped that shit up and kept wrestling. And it wasn't for thousands of fans at the Pontiac Silverdome. It wasn't for a raucous crowd at Madison Square Garden - it was for a bunch of Mutants in a Bingo Hall with no dates on a Saturday night. He did that shit for the love of the game.

After my second child was born, I accidentally cut the hell out of myself on a can trying to make soup for my recovering wife. The pregnancy had been really hard on her and she was bedridden. And I just felt like I couldn't leave her and the kids to get my finger checked out - even though it was flapping open. I immediately thought of Sabu and I super glued that shit together. I probably shouldn't have taken medical guidance from the exploits from a suicidal, homicidal, genocidal maniac - but it worked out in the end. 

  • Like 12
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DreamBroken

DreamBroken

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Posted

Gutted. One of my all time favorites for sure. Can't imagine wrestling without him, will definitely never be another.

For a guy not known for his talking, always thought he was an absolute blast to listen to in his shoots.

a true icon. RIP

  • Like 3
Log

Log

Posted
Posted (edited)

Hold up. Sabu’s real name was Terry Brunk!!?!?!

One of his most memorable opponents was Terry Funk and I somehow never heard this? 
 

Pro wrestling needs more dudes like Sabu. Truly original, did things on his own terms, changed the sport forever. RIP. 
 

A few people have touched on it here, but he was probably the last “mythical” wrestler. The guy you saw pics of in magazines and heard stories about, but didn’t get to see him for a while. With footage of even the smallest indies readily available these days, I don’t think we’ll see anything like that again. 

Edited by Log
  • Like 4
matwarz

matwarz

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Posted

I’m pretty sure I’m not a wrestling fan without Sabu. He changed my perspective of the business. He’s the motivation behind stupid teenage trips to Philly. He’s part of why I wanted to go to Japan so badly. He was literally the evolution of the business. 

  • Like 3
username

username

Posted
Posted

To this day every single time a wrestling show does the light out deal I hold my breath for a sec and go "...Sabu!?!" and I doubt I'm the only one.

  • Like 6
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Swift

Swift

Posted
Posted

I had recently watched his match with Janela, there were a couple of very scary bumps in there. One where he cracked his head open on the bare concrete outside the ring. Any word on if that match contributed to his death?

Cobra Commander

Cobra Commander

Posted
Posted

Take your pick about which workers would fit wearing genie pants as a tribute to Sabu (and which ones would be kinda weird if they did it)

also of all the Sabu spots, the chair throw is probably the “easiest” to do, followed by maybe the Arabian Facebuster (that’s the leaping leg drop with the chair? I might be mixing up the names). Like all the stuff with tables and leaping off chairs is probably a little harder for some guys to do “right”

Steventon

Steventon

Posted
Posted

Not much I can add others haven't already said. Even here in the UK where ECW wasn't quite as big, Sabu's reputation proceeded him long before I actually saw a match of his. A true legend in the purest sense of the word. Transcendent to the point where an entire discourse existed around him for decades.

The one thing I think about Sabu now is how much of true icon of the underground he was. He was the opposite of mainstream. Didn't cut promos, did unpredictable wreckless shit, didn't give 2 fucks about looking pretty or having tight execution, embodied violence, the list goes on. Polar opposite of corporate and what a company like WWF/E would want. And yet became a legend on his own terms, in the pre-internet age. Punk as fuck.

I wish we had more Sabu's. In 2025, we have guys who can hit the most incredible highspot sequences perfectly, and we get table bumps and chairshots every PPV, but no one truly captures the sense of unpredictability, danger and awe that Sabu did. One of the most iconic underground wrestlers of all time.

  • Like 4
RazorbladeKiss87

RazorbladeKiss87

Posted
Posted
9 hours ago, StevieNippz said:

. Is his last match worth checking out? 

 

 

.

This is just my opinion, but no. It's really sad. He was obviously fucked up and it's just a terrible way to remember him. I'm sure others disagree but it really reeked of exploitation. Again, just my two cents. 

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