RIP Sabu.

[Curt McGirt]

Man, here's one for the ages: Sabu and Bobby Eaton vs. Terry Funk and Arn Anderson, in ECW! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t-8N0oK6HY

[Zimbra]

9 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Oh man I can't believe I haven't seen this loonyness before. The hanging spot is unreal dangerous. Sambo reminded me that he was in the absolutely vicious beating against Masanobu Kurisu you can see here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKwYJJimLQE&ab_channel=sceduk an electric barbed wire match against Onita here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWZ43BxLxNQ&ab_channel=PuroresuHeaven-Wrestlingプロレス天国-日本のプロレス and a Tarzan Goto match I can't find anymore that was really mean too. He was a pretty brave tub of guts. 

Here is Sabu vs. Goto in a barbed wire match in FMW, terrible handheld but hey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avskFrERoqE&ab_channel=WWCWVRPR Making it even weirder is there is a jazz sax solo playing over the whole thing (?!). 

That Kurisu/Asako match was crazy.  Kurisu is dressed like his semi is running outside and as soon as the match is over he'll finish running this load of castings to Galveston.  Asako is fat as hell, has a giant head bandage, and is wearing an already-bloody gi jacket with slacks.  Things really get going when Kurisu takes off his cowboy boot and beats the fuck out of Asako with it. The whole thing is Memphis as hell.  

I give it a million billion stars.  

[Curt McGirt]

You know I didn't think about it, but Bobby and Arn were part of the Alliance (making this a parejas increiblas match!) and Paul was Sabu's manager (this was the crazy Sabu tied up days), Terry was eventually the champ and a Sabu opponent, and Arn and Bobby were clearly one of those WCW exchanges over a Paul lawsuit. It looks like a WAR matchup but it all makes sense. 

Of course the match is great. Bobby has the Beautiful punches, Terry misses a moonsault (and actually hits a powerbomb!), Arn takes an enormous bump off the top to the outside, Bobby gets piledriven on a piece of table draped over the bottom rope -- perfect aim from Terry, Public Enemy shows up. The whole thing has this aura of chaos, it's a whirling dervish of a match where the craziest guy, Sabu, is actually the glue and is in the ring the almost entire time! I mean, Funk blades his leg so they can work it over. Wild stuff that reminds you of when ECW was the best because it just felt so wild. 

[NikoBaltimore]

I've been watching '94 ECW for the past couple months and am coming up to WWC so I'm looking forward to it.  '93 ECW was fun to see how they sort out the NWA with Paul taking more control but '94 is where it's at.  With his passing it irritates me how little Heyman thought of/thinks of Sabu considering how incredibly essential he is to ECW's growth in this period of time.

[Curt McGirt]

Jericho on Sabu: 

“Of course I knew Sabu. Yeah. Worked with him when I was in #ECW. We had one match in 1996 and I think it was my second — last match I had there. But, Paul Heyman sold that match for 10 years afterwards. It was back when tape trading was a thing. He’d still always advertise that match on his TV shows for years and years and years afterwards and then actually, I just had Sabu work with us in AEW a couple years ago and I always talked with him a lot on Instagram on DMs… He DM’d me, text me, when we were in Las Vegas at the beginning of this FOZZY tour and he said, ‘Are you guys playing tonight?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, we’re at the Count’s Vamp’d’ or whatever the venue’s called. Didn’t hear anything else and then when I got off stage, he had text me at like 9 o’clock or so. We usually go at 9:30. ‘Can you put me on the list?’

I never saw it because I was getting ready for the gig. Then, I find out, ‘Oh yeah, Sabu was here.’ I was like, ‘What?’ ‘Yeah, he was here.’ Like, really? He didn’t come and say hi or anything so, and he never mentioned it. I talked to him afterwards, just up until about two weeks ago. We had a quick conversation, and he never mentioned he was at the show so, a very Sabu-esque thing to do but, it’s a true shame. What a pioneer in the wrestling business in so many different ways. So important and so legendary. A true legend and a true character in the business for sure.

He was an enigma. I think a lot of that was by design, but also a very good-hearted guy. Very great sense of humor. Detroit guy. He came from Detroit. I think he grew up here. But yeah, a very strange guy until you get to know him and then he was just a very — like I said, a very good-hearted, good dude so, I’m glad that I had reconnected with him. I brought him on the Jericho Cruise a few years ago. So yeah, I hadn’t seen him for a while. But then over the last few years, we had reestablished a relationship so I’m glad that we did because, like I said, he’ll be missed in the business for sure, and as a person… Only one (match with Sabu). Yeah, one match is all we ever had and like I said, it was kind of, you know, a tape trading classic at the time when that was still a thing back in the 90s.”

Source : During an interview with 101 WRIF

Transcript By Fightful

[Curt McGirt]

I keep getting cool Sabu shit in my Facebook feed. Him and the Sinister Minister

Spoiler

Screaming for Vengeance shirt! Mitchell's suit! A water bottle probably filled with vodka!

[zendragon]

We must have the same FB feed, was Jericho not in WWE when the did the ECW relaunch?

[Curt McGirt]

He wrestled Lance Storm at One Night Stand 2005. 

Lance is gonna have a hilarious video on Botchamania talking about Sabu's intentional botches; it was also in my Facebook. Of course it being Lance Storm he has no sense of humor about it and takes umbrage to botching making it look like they aren't doing their job as good as they can 

[zendragon]

I forgot Sabu was on the first ONS, I was trying to remember if WWECW was during one of Jericho's hiatuses or not.

[Curt McGirt]

Foley on Sabu 

Spoiler

REMEMBERING SABU

In 2004, I felt like I had let myself down at #WrestleMania — my first match in four years — by playing things too safe. I had said a prayer on my way to the ring that night, a prayer that actually read, “please God, don’t let me suck out there tonight!”. Not exactly shooting for the stars... In a way, my prayer was answered, because I did not suck that night in Madison Square Garden — but I left MSG a long way from delivering a performance I could truly be proud of.

I was scheduled for a return match in May — a singles match against Randy Orton — and I needed to find a way to get back to having the type of match, I could be proud of. Like Rocky Balboa, I needed to find my eye of the tiger.

I found it in #Sabu. In the weeks building up to the match with Orton, watching my old matches with Sabu became my main source of inspiration. There was the ECW brawl in Hamburg, Pennsylvania, where at my request, Sabu broke a beer bottle over my head… on the sixth try. By bottle shot number four, even the diehard, bloodthirsty ECW faithful were wincing, giving off a “haven’t you guys done enough?” vibe. Earlier in the match, Sabu had overshot me on a moonsault off the second rope to the outside, and just about impaled himself on the guard rail. The sounds of suffering emanating from his body were just awful. I thought there was no way this guy could possibly continue this match, and then then I heard him say “give me time…give me time” and a minute later, after I bought him that time by engaging in a war of words with Paul Heyman, Sabu was good to go. I’m sure he was suffering for days after that bump, but you would have never known it to see his performance that night. He was remarkable.

But more than the ECW matches, it was the independent shows we had done together that inspired me the most. There was the Silver Nugget match in Las Vegas, where we ventured into the casino and swept the blackjack table clean so as to better execute a pile driver in front of the stunned casino customers. We used just about everything that was not bolted down that night, and while watching it back, I found myself saying out loud, “wow, we worked hard for our money!”

Another match in Pahrump, Nevada was even more inspirational; smaller crowd, far from the bright lights of Vegas, with Sabu and I both doing whatever we could to make this the best match it could possibly be. There was no financial incentive in doing what we did. We had both been paid and no one would have thought less of us, promoter included if we had done a whole lot less that night. But that’s just not the way things went down when Sabu was your opponent. Sabu always struck me as his own worst critic, and he was often disappointed in himself, even after matches I thought had been incredible. But in being so demanding of himself, he raised the bar for every wrestler he shared the ring with. I know he brought the best out of me when we were together, and I am not alone in that realization. After watching that match in Pahrump half a dozen times, I came to another realization; if I could work that hard at an independent show in a small gymnasium in Pahrump, Nevada, then I could work that hard with Randy Orton on a WWE PPV.

Rarely has a wrestler been as dedicated to their own gimmick as Sabu was. Following in the footsteps of his uncle, the legendary original Sheik — a man who literally terrified fans for decades — Sabu made the decision to be true to his character. Out of concern for the sanctity of his character, he did not do promotional interviews, rarely spoke with fans, and was an enigma backstage to all but a few close friends. I loved the guy, and felt completely secure putting my life in his hands, but even after 30 years of friendship, I can’t claim to have known him all that well. The next time I see RVD, I’d like to have a nice sit down and talk about his closest friend.

By nature, even when not protecting his character, Sabu was not a people person. He would give you the shirt off his back, but he wasn’t warm and cuddly. He never seemed comfortable after making the decision to do meet and greets before shows. Economically, they were a necessity – not just for the wrestlers, but for the promotions as well. Promoters simply cannot bring in the big names without charging for meet and greets. He was so lucky to have had 'Super Genie' Melissa Coates by his side for so many years. After her passing, Sabu just seemed incomplete without her.

Just do me a favor... In any tribute or comment, please don’t refer to him as Terry. He was Sabu. I made the mistake of calling him Terry once after I’d known him for 20 years. He pointed to Terry Funk and said “That’s Terry — I’m Sabu."

I wish Sabu could have found a different way to connect with audiences as time went by. So many towering figures in our sport are able to become even more successful and more effective after their physical prime has passed. Injecting humor into those characters as they mature has allowed so many to remain vital. Ric Flair dropped elbows on a suit coat and got into a legendary “Woooo! Off" with Jay Lethal. Triple H and Shawn Michaels added an extra layer to their characters with countless DX shenanigans. I wore tie dye and did the 23 skidoo knock-kneed love dance. But Sabu stayed true to his vision - and continued to pay the price for the rest of his life.

I once did an interview in #WWE where I said that Sabu had never gotten his due. He really never did. He was a pioneer, a game changer, one of the biggest influences on pro-wrestling of his generation. In 2004, the inspiration I found in his matches led me to the best match of my career. Sabu deserves to be remembered as a true legend, and hopefully soon as a WWE Hall of Famer.

#RIPSabu

 

[zendragon]

yep we have the same FB feed, came here to post that

[Curt McGirt]

It was in my randoms. I went back and realized "duh you should've posted the photo"

[zendragon]

On 5/18/2025 at 8:42 PM, Curt McGirt said:

That was in the ECW book Hardcore History too with the rest of the list, and it came off like a cruel punchline. Jaw-dropping and such a 'fuck you' from Heyman. They really must've had heat for that New Japan cancellation, but Paul E. should have realized how much money he was making and understood that he would have done the exact same thing if he'd been double booked like that.

 

In a business populated by carnies Paul E. is certainly up there