RIP Sabu.

[Curt McGirt]

On 5/11/2025 at 9:45 PM, username said:

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.

Every time. Every fucking time. (Thank you, Coach Tony)

I still remember the first photo I ever saw of him in PWI doing a leg drop, when the only ECW I could see was scrambled PPV footage where I would listen to the audio, or gifs on the internet. He was a mystery. It remains mysterious to me that someone would intentionally go to Japan and scar themselves up just to gain mystique. One of a kind. 

[Technico Support]

1 hour ago, ExcellenceofAirPollution said:

The "controversy" on his last match is pretty overblown IMO.  I've never used Kratom but you can buy it all over and I generally know it as a shitty drug teenagers abuse.  It was basically every indy match with an old guy.  He probably shouldn't have been doing it, but he went out there for the payday, and promoters/commissions don't care if a guy can barely move.  It's sad, and this was higher profile, but it's literally every weekend on the indies with somebody, they're all playing roulette, and there's no indication yet it directly led to his death.

Seriously.  I'm not a fan of GCW but terminally online goofs jumping on the garbage train and using this as ammunition is shitty.  Not that Janela is doing himself any favors either, but I'm at least glad he tried to explain Sabu's regular kratom use a little better.  But people are acting like evil mudshow wrestler Joey Janela personally drove to Sabu's hotel and shot him full of horse tranquilizer. 

I think I saw Sabu on TV before the magazines, weirdly enough.  In the early 90s, my college's "dorm cable system" was actually just a homegrown solution built by a local dish provider.  We'd get some weird-ass networks, man, and one of them was the Sunshine Network.  Stumbling upon ECW at like 11 at night, during a time when WWF and WCW were both creatively in the shitter, was like finding a transmission from another dimension.  It was insane in all the best ways and Sabu was a massive part of that.  Just to echo what everyone else has said, the man was the last of his kind.  RIP.

Edited May 13, 2025 by Technico Support

[Cobra Commander]

2 hours ago, Pete said:

He got an obituary in The New York Times. THE TIMES. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/us/sabu-terry-brunk-wwe-wrestler-dead.html

if you told an ECW fan in 1995 that Sabu would get a NYT obit

[The Natural]

First time today I've learned about kratom.

[AxB]

1 minute ago, The Natural said:

First time today I've learned about kratom.

There's plenty of things that are available over the counter in the USA that are completely banned over here.

Sabu, he was the last of his kind, but he was also the first of his kind too. He was unique. But I didn't expect him to die at 60, when his Uncle was still wrestling at 70.

[Cobra Commander]

5 minutes ago, The Natural said:

First time today I've learned about kratom.

I heard of it years ago because one of the side effects of kratom is an inability to shut up about kratom and one of the radio DJs would mention it

[Peck]

26 minutes ago, Cobra Commander said:

I heard of it years ago because one of the side effects of kratom is an inability to shut up about kratom and one of the radio DJs would mention it

So the pharmaceutical equivalent of Crossfit?  

[Raziel]

Kratom was the super hot thing to both get off of Cocaine and it's variants as well as "be an all around booster suppliment" for a hot minute until people started figuring out that it was just the South American equivalent of Opium.  Every radio person and podcaster that were thirsty for sponsors were hawking it around 2020-2022.

It was pretty much like when Stacker 2 came out in 99 with the ephedra and it was getting used as "legal" speed until people started ODing and their hearts started exploding.

[Technico Support]

1 hour ago, Raziel said:

It was pretty much like when Stacker 2 came out in 99 with the ephedra and it was getting used as "legal" speed until people started ODing and their hearts started exploding.

The shitty thing about that is that people were dying from ephedra supplements for years, but it took a baseball player showing up out of shape, to Spring training in Florida, after taking lord knows how much gas station crank, dying during a conditioning drill, in order for the government to take notice.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

2 hours ago, The Natural said:

First time today I've learned about kratom.

Same here

[RazorbladeKiss87]

I sought out kratom on one of my many attempts to quit opiates by using other substances.  It was not great. Just traded one drug for another.  And this was in like 2014 so the only way you were getting it was through sketchy online sales. I've seen a lot of "former" opiate addicts get just as hooked on the stuff. It's bad enough that the recovery program right by me has people who just cruise the smoke shops busting their residents for buying it. 

[supremebve]

17 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Same here

Yeah, I've seen the word, but that shit might as well have been written in Cantonese, because I had no idea what it meant.

[odessasteps]

3 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

if you told an ECW fan in 1995 that Sabu would get a NYT obit

Only maybe if he had been injured or killed on live tv. 

[twiztor]

4 hours ago, The Natural said:

First time today I've learned about kratom.

a couple years ago i was working part time at a record shop, and there was a big display behind the counter with Kratom. I had never heard of it, and still don't really get it.  Had a couple of regulars who would come in just for that. to each their own i suppose.

[Ziggy]

On 5/12/2025 at 2:44 PM, supremebve said:

I don't think there has been a wrestler since the close of ECW that replaced Sabu in a very specific place in wrestling.  When Sabu was in the ring, you had no idea what was about to happen.  One of my biggest pet peeves about modern wrestling is how formulaic it is.  

I seen a clip from a Shoot Shawn Michaels did with RF when he retired the first time from 2000 of him praising RVD but saying some of what he does looks choreographed. It's funny because that's RVD and Sabu complaint about guys today. When they talk about their work they talk about they didn't talk about much. In later years in WWE they had to run alot of the bigger spots by the agents or Vince because of the people in the truck having to catch things on camera. It makes sense now that sometimes Sabu would purposely mess up spots to add to his match. It's irritating that people can have a minor slip up and people would call it a botch. I don't agree that everything has to come off super clean and crisp or otherwise people will consider it a botch. McAfee slipped on the ropes at Backlash and a few people called it a botch. Shouldn't it be believable that a part timer or celebrity can mess up a move even if it isn't intentional. I like Charlotte. She's a great athlete and I enjoy her matches most times but honestly most of the time she looks like 90° from injuring herself and her opponent. The lack of smoothness in her moves add to her appeal in a weird way.

It wouldn't be fun if everyone was a smooth as Curt Hennig or Bret Hart in the mid to late 80s. Or maybe it would be, it's just unrealistic 

[supremebve]

14 minutes ago, Ziggy said:

I seen a clip from a Shoot Shawn Michaels did with RF when he retired the first time from 2000 of him praising RVD but saying some of what he does looks choreographed. It's funny because that's RVD and Sabu complaint about guys today. When they talk about their work they talk about they didn't talk about much. In later years in WWE they had to run alot of the bigger spots by the agents or Vince because of the people in the truck having to catch things on camera. It makes sense now that sometimes Sabu would purposely mess up spots to add to his match. It's irritating that people can have a minor slip up and people would call it a botch. I don't agree that everything has to come off super clean and crisp or otherwise people will consider it a botch. McAfee slipped on the ropes at Backlash and a few people called it a botch. Shouldn't it be believable that a part timer or celebrity can mess up a move even if it isn't intentional. I like Charlotte. She's a great athlete and I enjoy her matches most times but honestly most of the time she looks like 90° from injuring herself and her opponent. The lack of smoothness in her moves add to her appeal in a weird way.

It wouldn't be fun if everyone was a smooth as Curt Hennig or Bret Hart in the mid to late 80s. Or maybe it would be, it's just unrealistic 

There needs to be more, "this dude seems legitimately dangerous," in modern wrestling.  Jacob Fatu has a little bit of it, but he's the first person in a while who feels like he's willing to injure himself to hurt his opponent.  I don't want this person to be working in a way that actually injures people, but the illusion of danger should always be an active part of wrestling.

[Pete]

10 minutes ago, supremebve said:

There needs to be more, "this dude seems legitimately dangerous," in modern wrestling.  Jacob Fatu has a little bit of it, but he's the first person in a while who feels like he's willing to injure himself to hurt his opponent.  I don't want this person to be working in a way that actually injures people, but the illusion of danger should always be an active part of wrestling.

Erick Rowan had some of that vibe for awhile during the Wyatt Family run. I remember people complaining about how untrained he looked, which was such a stupid argument... did you really want a guy with his size and look wrestling gracefully, or did you want what he was: a giant wildebeest wrecking dudes and looking completely out of control?

[Phil Schneider]

https://www.theringer.com/2025/05/13/wwe/sabu-best-matches-ecw-fmw

 

Did my version of a Best of Sabu Vol 3 mixtape for the Ringer

[zendragon]

5 hours ago, Peck said:

So the pharmaceutical equivalent of Crossfit?  

[Ziggy]

2 Cold Scorpio was similar to Sabu as far as the grittyness. He could so all the flips and dives but just like Sabu, his strikes looked really stiff. It looked like when he landed on his opponents only thing they could do was hope for the best. Scorpio was a smaller guy by the early 90s standards. By modern day standards he would easily pass as a Heavy weight. Same if Owen Hart was around in the 2000s. Watching Scorpios stuff now looked like he didn't have much give in how he landed alot like Sabu but Sabu was smaller. Most of the Samoans were much bigger but had better control in how they landed on guys 

[odessasteps]

In case no one posted it yet, the vault posted a Sabu v Scott Taylor match

https://youtu.be/5RQLNzf3Q2U?si=7kHWADQMWsMGnSZn

[zendragon]

From Brian Solomon on FB

Quote

he date was Saturday, November 18, 1995, and I found myself on the corner of Swanson and Ritner in South Philadelphia. It wasn’t an ideal place to be on any given day, but on this particular day I was there for something special: ECW’s November to Remember. It was my first (and last) time making the trek out in person to the ECW Arena to check out the raucous, industry-shaking new promotion I’d been watching on television at ungodly hours on the MSG Network in between late-night cramming for college exams.

It was wrestling’s version of walking into the cantina from Star Wars, but it would be so worth it, because on that night I got to witness history, and one of the most indelible wrestling moments of the 1990s. After the first “match”, a beatdown of Don E. Allen and the Broad Street Bully by a stuttering, tuxedo-jacket-clad Buh-Buh Ray Dudley, a svelte and unshaven Paul Heyman hit the ring and ominously asked for the house lights to be lowered—an almost weekly occurrence in current wrestling, but something novel back then.

And when the lights came back up, there he was—clad in glittering genie pants, white sash belt and boots—the homicidal, suicidal, genocidal Sabu, his tanned body a map of scar tissue, pointing skyward in his classic pose. He’d been gone from the company for half a year, and no one in the crowd expected his return on this night or any other. The place came absolutely unglued, and as Sabu and Heyman shook hands and shared a tentative embrace in the ring, the loud and joyous chants of “ECW! ECW! ECW!” rang out.

That moment always stayed with me, and colored my perception and memories of the man who had almost single-handedly defined the extreme style that made ECW so famous—an exhilarating blend of violent hardcore and graceful (and sometimes not-so-graceful) high-flying wizardry. Many years later, when I was preparing to write Blood and Fire: The Unbelievable Real-Life Story of Wrestling’s Original Sheik, Sabu was the first person that came to mind in terms of who I wanted to interview for the book. I knew how much of an influence his uncle had been on him, how close they had been, and how Sabu had dutifully carried the torch for The Sheik’s legacy all these years.

I had wanted it to be the centerpiece interview of the book—alas, due to budget constraints and the prohibitive costs of paying people for interviews for book projects whose margin of profit is already razor-thin, we were unable to make it happen. Nevertheless, Sabu was supportive of the project. We spoke occasionally via text, and his wonderful late wife, “Super Genie” Melissa Coates, who was a dear friend of mine, would act as a sort of go-between. She also provided me with a copy of Sabu’s own revelatory autobiography, Scars, Silence & Superglue, which proved an indispensable reference source and an answer to most of the questions I would’ve wanted to ask him myself.

We finally crossed paths in Las Vegas in the summer of 2022, at the Cauliflower Alley Club reunion. The late Kevin Sullivan made the introduction, and thanks to him I was able to put the book into Sabu’s hands, and tell him how much it meant to me to be able to share it with someone who was carrying on the legacy of The Sheik in the present-day, and who had also meant so much to the business in his own right. It was a long way from that dingy bingo hall twenty-seven years prior, and the kind of full-circle moment that has dotted my lengthy career as a wrestling-fan-turned-wrestling-writer.

You don’t need me to tell you this, but Sabu was one of the great unsung heroes of the wrestling industry. For as respected and celebrated as he was, he deserved so much more. There are few wrestlers in the history of the business who were more copied than he was, and who so directly broadened the very definition of what pro wrestling is, and changed the way wrestlers worked—for better, and for worse.

Like Sabu himself, this legacy is a complicated one. There are so many people who came after him, who emulated him, who were able to reap so much more benefits and rewards in the business than he did. And although he was a true innovator who brought something fresh, original and exciting to a tired genre at the time, his many metaphorical offspring now fill every hour of televised wrestling with endless high-spots, table-and-chair mayhem and death-defying acrobatics that can become truly numbing and make it difficult to remember when this was all new and groundbreaking.

He was the darling of tape-traders, newsletter readers, and underground enthusiasts everywhere. Even before his career-defining run in ECW, when he was tearing things up over in Japan with his uncle as part of Atsushi Onita’s Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling (FMW), his matches were among the most sought-after artifacts a fan could obtain, even if they had to be viewed on grainy and discolored second- or third-generation VHS dubs labeled in Sharpie scrawl. In short, there was a window of time when Sabu was the most exciting professional wrestler on the planet, bar none. And when I saw Diesel put Bret Hart through the Spanish announce table in the WWF’s first modern table spot at the 1995 Survivor Series, I knew I wasn’t the only one checking out those tapes and watching MSG Network late at night.

His rise was meteoric, and most assumed that it was only a matter of time before his indie success would translate to mainstream notoriety and a spot in one of the major American companies, where his unparalleled skills could draw the kind of audience they deserved. But unlike so many other stars spotlighted by ECW who did successfully make that leap to one degree or another, including the likes of The Dudley Boyz, Taz, Raven, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio and Tommy Dreamer, it didn’t quite happen for Sabu to the extent that it should have.

Sure, he had a run for a while in TNA Wrestling, but that was a far cry from the immortality that should have marked the prime years of his career. And, as has been stated by many, Sabu could often be his own worst enemy, self-sabotaging time and again, and blowing sterling opportunities due to stubbornness, poor decision-making, and clinging to the advice of his uncle, which may have worked for The Sheik in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, but was decidedly less relevant to the career of an indie worker looking to break into the mainstream in the 1990s.

I can remember Kevin Sullivan telling me how desperate he was to ensure that Sabu had a lucrative place in WCW in 1995, back when he was a booker with some stroke there and greatly admired Sabu’s abilities. But Sabu and Sullivan came out on the short end of a political dust-up with Eric Bischoff—not to mention Paul Heyman, who infamously sought legal recourse to force Sabu to return to ECW, leading to that seemingly heartfelt reunion at November to Remember, the reality of which was unknown to those exuberant fans on that night.

Then there were the heartbreaking missed opportunities with the WWF/E. Some tryout matches in 1993. A chance to be “The Sultan” in 1997—a distinction that went to Fatu (the future Rikishi) after Vince McMahon refused to let Sabu be managed by his uncle. And finally, the chance of a lifetime to be the centerpiece of McMahon’s relaunched ECW brand in 2006, which fell apart due to Sabu’s refusal to break his years of onscreen silence, not to mention an unhealthy dose of garden-variety screw-ups and disciplinary issues. Sure, WWE’s ECW brand turned out to be a failure, but it could have been the foot in the door Sabu needed. It was all frustrating for his fans, friends and admirers to see.

And yet, the truth remained. Sabu was and is one of the most important and integral professional wrestlers who ever lived. He led the way to the future, and did it all in the most unassuming way. Like all the greatest trend-setters, he didn’t set out to change the business—he did it organically, just by setting the example that lit the business on fire, and sometimes in a more than figurative sense. He emerged fully from the lengthy shadow of The Sheik, despite looking more and more exactly like him the older he got. Nowadays, he is no longer known as “The Sheik’s nephew” as he once was. Rather, The Sheik is known as “Sabu’s uncle”. And that’s a hell of an accomplishment in its own right.

And unlike The Sheik, we are thankfully left with a tremendous recorded legacy of Sabu’s greatest achievements, on video for all to see and relive. No one will ever have to wonder why or how Sabu was such an important figure. They can see it still, experiencing his game-changing work in FMW, ECW, New Japan, TNA, even WCW and WWE, not to mention the countless other independent shows over the years where he rekindled the magic one more time and reminded everyone of who he was. They can see him bleed with Terry Funk in a sea of barbed wire; or come nose-to-nose with Taz in what may have been the best-built program of all time; or survive an inferno in a Japanese ring dripping with kerosene; or even put John Cena through a ringside table in one of the most surreal lumberjack matches of all time.

I would have loved to include Sabu in my project chronicling the life of The Sheik, but I completely understood and respected his reasons for not being involved. The sad truth was that Sabu had put so much more into the business than he ever got out of it. And in later years, struggling with his health and his finances and perhaps holding some regret for the choices he’d made, he was determined to try and get back from it as much as he could. As he had every right to. I knew he was glad the project was happening, and that he got to see the finished product, and that was enough.

I’m grateful to Melissa for her help during that period, and for many late-night conversations with her about the husband she loved and supported so much—what he meant to the business, and what he deserved from the business. He was never the same after her untimely passing in 2021—just one more cherished thing the business had taken from him. And it’s especially painful to think that they’re both now gone, although perhaps tinged with the bittersweet hope that they may be reunited at last.

And for all the rest of us, what’s left behind are the memories, and the incredible body of work, which should live on forever, and will as long as they remain available to be discovered and rediscovered by anyone who wants to witness the exploits of the man who once commanded the attention of an industry and left it dramatically different from how he found it. He left behind a trail of broken tables, broken bodies and absolute carnage. But along with that, he left behind a legacy the likes of which few professional wrestlers could ever dream of.

 

[Ziggy]

1 hour ago, supremebve said:

There needs to be more, "this dude seems legitimately dangerous," in modern wrestling.  Jacob Fatu has a little bit of it, but he's the first person in a while who feels like he's willing to injure himself to hurt his opponent.  I don't want this person to be working in a way that actually injures people, but the illusion of danger should always be an active part of wrestling.

And he managed to get the Prize fighter gimmick over better than Kevin Owens, but i guess when you mention you have 7 children whether you are in or out of character you don't need much to believe in the gimmick.Plus the way the commentators put over his time in Jail is something that adds to him being dangerous too. Alot of guys like MVP were never afraid of bringing up their criminal past. It really could have been used in a way to get him over more as a babyface in WWE. They seem to really not shy away from that with Jacob to the point where it's seems like a way to make it impossible to dislike him. I remember watching the last SNME against Strowman and he's just a monster in that match and they bring up him coming along way from being in jail and I'm thinking to myself how can I not want him to succeed 

[odessasteps]

I mean, his rep as “the samoan the wwe was afraid to hire” was good for his gimmick. 

[NikoBaltimore]

On 5/12/2025 at 6:18 AM, RazorbladeKiss87 said:

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. 

I just saw the match and yeah it was hard at times to watch. He was going on about something in his entrance for quite a while and the flow was just odd throughout the match. Don't get me wrong, when he wasn't randomly stopping the match or spots it was cool seeing him do Sabu things. But I don't know if I can recommend it. And no, I don't know or care to speculate anything about kratom and how it may or may not have factored into it. 

Anyway, I definitely heard about Sabu before I had a chance to see him. I can't do justice speaking about the guy but you all nailed it. RIP, Sabu.