The history of 'Whatever' by Our Lady Peace: Can the band reclaim the song?

 

There are many examples of famous songs no longer being played by the bands that made them popular. Paramore notably stopped playing Misery Business, arguably their biggest hit in 2018, eleven years after it’s release, because of a line that was considered degrading. Read into that a different word that YouTube says I can’t use in my intro. In 2022, the band reneged on this and re-added it to the setlist, but what about when an artist brings back a song that has been tarnished for reasons out of their control?




On February 19th 2025, Canadian band Our Lady Peace began their 30th anniversary tour in Calgary, and they played Whatever for the first time since September 2003. The song was used as the entrance theme for Chris Benoit, a name I usually try to avoid using on this channel, unless when historically relevant. The replaying of the song has brought about some mixed feelings from fans, so in this video, I want to briefly explore the song’s history, why some might feel it is too closely linked to WWE, and whether or not the band can reclaim the song as their own. To look at the comments under videos of the song, it seems like lots of fans of both WWE and the band are happy to hear it again, as if the song actually went away, but I also want to take a look at why fans might feel differently.




On March 26th 2002, WWE released Forceable Entry, their latest CD of entrance themes. Whatever was included on this disc before it was used on WWE television. The album also included many songs that had been heard on WWE TV, such as Steve Austin’s theme “Glass Shatters” by Disturbed, as well as “Rollin” by Limp Bizkit, which was used by The Undertaker. It also included songs that hadn’t yet but would soon be used, like “Across the Nation”, the Raw theme that wouldn’t debut until the following month, and Whatever, by Our Lady Peace for Benoit, who at the time was out of action following a serious neck injury. When he returned on the May 27th 2002 episode of Raw, he did so with Whatever playing for the first time.




Speaking to the Edmonton Journal in February 2025, Singer for the band Raine Maida teased that the song was coming back, though it didn’t make headlines until it had actually been performed. He said “We’re playing Whatever, which we did for WWE and it’s kind of got a terrible (Chris Benoit) story attached.” As Maida says, the song was originally recorded for WWE. It also includes the same very distinctive riff as Benoit’s previous music made by WWE’s long time composer Jim Johnston. Jim has varying credits on twelve of the eighteen songs on Forceable Entry, from “remix” on Marilyn Manson’s “The Beautiful People” to match the version used of the song that WWE used on Smackdown, to writing credits on other songs, to a co-”music” credit on Whatever. There are other songs where Jim has no credit at all, but he does on Whatever, implying that it was a WWE song in some part. In a 2021 interview with the RRBG podcast, Johnston explained why music is so important to a wrestler from his perspective. He described entrance music as “a score to that character so every time people hear it, they feel that character. It’s not just thinking about it, they feel that character and what that character is about.”




There are other songs on the WWE album that I couldn’t find evidence of a live performance of, like “End of Everything” by Stereomud, used for Raven, or “The Game” by Drowning Pool, which only seem to have had one live playing, and that was a poor rendition at Wrestlemania 18. With all of this in consideration, it’s easy to see why WWE fans might cringe a bit at hearing the song live again, but why might the band feel differently about it?




Our Lady Peace had been playing Whatever at concerts since May 2001. and according to stats on Setlist.fm, they played the song live at least twenty eight times before it was ever used by WWE, or before Forceable Entry came out. They stopped playing it in 2003, for which I can’t find a reason, so it may have just fallen out of the setlist, replaced by newer songs. Going back to the credits on Forceable Entry, Maida is acknowledged as the song’s writer, while members of the band as well as Jim Johnston are credited for the music. From here it’s already easy to see how the band might feel ownership of it. When they brought it back this weekend, Maida told the audience in attendance “We recorded it and ended up on this kinda big soundtrack”, clearly not wanting to draw the link right away. He goes on to say “Things happen in your life and they can own you or you can own them, we decided to take back ownership of this song because it is our song. It has to do with mental health, and that’s how we’re taking control.” The song’s lyrics never really struck me that way, and the repeated line “I’m not driven by fear, I’m just driven by anger” doesn;t help in separating it from what happened. Following the song, as Maida said they would, the screens showed information for the Suicide Crisis Helpline. A very noble thing to do, but not likely to distance the song from it’s troubled past. Whatever isn’t specifically about Benoit, but showing what he did, those lyrics can take a meaning that the writer clearly couldn’t have meant them to.




It seems that to some fans, Our Lady Peace quite unfairly might never shake the association with Benoit. In 2022, when the band’s song “Run” was announced as the theme for the first Clash at the Castle event, discussion about Benoit came back up. If anything, I wish more fans talked about their song “not enough”, which was used in an excellent video package about Jeff Hardy, including his famous ladder match with Undertaker in 2002. That match, Jim Ross’ call of “climb the ladder kid, make yourself famous”, and Not Enough by Our Lady Peace all stuck with me, much like Jim Johnston was talking about in the quote I referenced earlier.




Before I ask for your opinion, here’s mine. “Cult of Personality” was first used by CM Punk in Ring of Honor in 2005, and since July 2011 it has been his regular entrance theme in WWE, in UFC but we’re not going there, then AEW, then back in WWE. The song was released first in 1988, seventeen years before Punk started using it. There will be some fans who first heard it on WWE programming, but then there will also be some who first heard it in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas in 2004 as I probably did, or from no other media in particular. When I hear Cult of Personality, I don’t necessarily think of CM Punk. When I hear Whatever though, I only think of Benoit, and that’s the distinction. On the other hand, I know very little about Our Lady Peace, and so would I feel differently if I was a fan of theirs?




As a kid at the time, I first learned that Chris Benoit had passed when the regularly scheduled episode of Raw was scrapped, and in it’s place a tribute show aired. Throughout Tuesday I listened to that song, only knowing that Benoit was gone, not yet knowing the details of what had actually happened. It was only when I got home from school and got online that I learned what that man had done, and I’ve rarely if ever heard Whatever since, but that’s just my experience of the song. As I understand it from comments I’ve read, fans of the band may not even know it from wrestling, as it’s a relatively deep cut in their back catalogue, never appearing on any Our Lady Peace album. Perhaps the band is hoping that enough time has passed, that newer fans won’t have the same connection to it that early 2000’s WWE fans like me do? In playing it now for newer fans the context will be removed, initially at least, until a bunch of wrestling fans start making noise about it. It’ll only take a curious Our Lady Peace fan not very long to do a quick google search and after this weekend, to find out exactly why. For this reason, I can’t see it ever escaping it’s quote “troubled past”. From looking at the comments on the subject, there does seem to be a lot of people who still love the song and can separate it from Benoit. If that's you, more power to you though, but it brings back too many thoughts about that day when I found out what had happened.




I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of this, so please let me know in the comments. While this will likely be one of those stories that makes headlines right now but will be forgotten next week, it interested me because of the vastly differing opinions on social media.




Sources:

Paramore - https://metro.co.uk/2018/09/10/paramore-will-no-longer-perform-misery-business-live-due-to-its-slut-shaming-lyrics-7930104/

Maida Interview, February 2025 - https://edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/music/our-lady-peace-raine-maida-interview-edmonton-concert-tour

Jim Johnston interview - https://411mania.com/wrestling/jim-johnston-explains-why-he-doesnt-like-wrestlers-using-mainstream-music/

Live playing info - https://www.setlist.fm/stats/songs/our-lady-peace-63d6eeb3.html?songid=4bd7ff6e

Forceable Entry Credits - https://www.discogs.com/release/2815539-Various-WWF-Forceable-Entry?srsltid=AfmBOoqCETJ9EtBYgequFOm9AGTeXBZvbSdrFol05AfvFPl4BkCitCwY

‘Whatever performance’ Suicide Crisis Line after performance - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQeL-vA14VA

Clash 2022 - https://www.sportskeeda.com/wwe/news-chris-benoit-trends-twitter-latest-wwe-clash-castle-announcement

Sabu's WCW Timeline: What happened and what went wrong?

He’s ___, he’s ___, he’s ___. All words YouTube frown upon so this is going well. Joking aside, there are very few wrestlers who have quite the legacy that Sabu has. From taping up insane wounds and continuing with matches, to an equally wild life out of the ring, to nowadays a very edgy twitter follow,


At the time of me writing this Sabu is set to have his last ever match, ending his career, which began forty years ago. Just think about that for a second, this man here began wrestling forty years ago, His last match is set to be against Joey Janella for Game Changer Wrestling over Wrestlemania weekend. Set to be, but who actually knows when Sabu’s last match will be.


Sabu is one of those wrestlers who looks like he was tailor made for ECW, and with that in mind, I wanted to take a look at a weird time in his career. In this video, we’ll look at why he left ECW. How he joined WCW, as well as his entire run there, and what happened next.


Sabu would arrive in ECW on October 1st 1993, wrestling Taz who was also making his debut. Earlier that year though he had wrestled a dark match for WCW, facing Mad Max Anthony. Later in October ‘93 he would also wrestle a few dark matches for WWE, including a match with Scott Taylor, the Future Scotty too Hotty before a Raw taping. He had also had a brief run in USWA in 1992 working as Samu, against the likes of Jeff Jarrett, Brian Christopher, and a man he trained with called Rob Zakowski, better known as Rob Van Dam.


By early 1995, Sabu had already won the ECW Heavyweight title, television and tag team championships. He had already accomplished everything there was to do in ECW at the time, and was taking bookings elsewhere. In December ‘94 he had begun working for New Japan Pro Wrestling, and was beginning to work there regularly. Trouble would come in April though, when Sabu accidentally double booked himself between ECW and New Japan, and chose to skip Hayman’s booking. As a result, at ECW Three Way Dance on April 8th, Paul Heyman would come to the ring and publicly fire Sabu.


Sabu’s firing from ECW would end up being one of the top main stories in the Wrestling Observer that week. In the April 17th issue, Dave Meltzer might have uncovered the reason why Paul Heyman was so upset about Sabu missing the booking. The event that Sabu missed was called Three Way Dance, and it was built around a three team match for the tag team championships, with Sabu and Taz, facing Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko, as well as the Public Enemy. Dave wrote that “Heyman had been wanting to put together the three-way since Christmas but a botched angle at one show combined with schedule conflicts combined with wanting to build to it correctly kept pushing the match back. The date was added for 4/8 because it was the only possible date to at that point assure that all six would be available.” He adds that “Paul Heyman said they gave Sabu the 4/8 date on 3/20”, while “New Japan reportedly gave Sabu the 4/8 date on 3/21”, so the ECW booking had come in a day earlier, but you could argue that the Japan booking may have been more important to Sabu, as according to him, the bookings were to lead to an event on May 3rd, where he would win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title match from Koji Kanemoto.


It seems though, that there was a little more to Sabu choosing New Japan, as he seemed to be unhappy with ECWs trademark style. “He also admitted he’s been unhappy with the current direction of ECW, in particular undercard wrestlers using juice and chairs and brawling all over the building feeling it detracts from when the main eventers do the same thing, and also other wrestlers putting wrestlers through tables which he felt was his personal gimmick.”


When speculating about where Sabu might land when he returned to the US, Dave said in his story that “It’s expected that Sabu will start working in the tri-state area for rival promoter Dennis Coraluzzo.” This wasn't helped any by Paul Heyman's speech that he gave to the crowd at Three Way Dance. During Sabu’s next few months in New Japan, he would indeed as planned win the junior heavyweight title from Kanemoto, at Wrestling Dontaku. The next month he would make his only successful defence against Black Tiger, this version being Eddie Guerrero under the mask. Two days later, he would lose the title back to Kanemoto. Sabu would continue to work regularly for New Japan for the rest of 1995, but never for them again. In ‘96 he would return to FMW who he had worked for previously, and would also wrestle for BJW and All Japan.



You might be wondering then how and why Sabu ended up joining WCW. The answer put a briefly as possible is Nitro. In the July 31st Wrestling Observer, we get our first report of WCW wanting fresh new talent ahead of their upcoming new live show. “There is a lot of sentiment to putting on one classic match for 20:00 every week involving guys like Sabu, Eddy Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Al Snow, Brian Pillman, etc., particularly on the heels of the Bret Hart-Hakushi match on Raw.” While some of these names were said to have been made offers, Dave notes that regarding Sabu “interest has been expressed.” In the following weeks issue these acquisitions seem even less likely. Having originally reported that they had made an offer to Al Snow, Dave corrects the record by saying that they told him that he would receive an offer, but he never did, and so he joined WWE instead. Negotiations with Eddie Guerrero had also stalled, though he would end up joining WCW in August. From the talent’s side, it seems that there wasn’t much trust in WCW to do much with them. “There has been concern expressed by several of the names above that WCW has been unable to get anyone over, the (sic) Benoit’s treatment when he was in WCW along with the treatment of Brian Pillman and Steve Austin, who have been with the company for years and are two of the three or four best workers in the company, seemingly have had their careers go nowhere.”


By a couple of weeks later, it seemed that WCW had been able to secure the services of Sabu, along with Benoit, Guerrero and Dean Malenko, a sort of extreme radicals if you will. It appears that WCW did this by allowing all flour to continue to work with New Japan as well as US indies, though the trade off is that they could not work any dates for WWE, Smokey Mountain or ECW. In the same issue, Dave expresses concern about how Sabu might be able to work once he gets to WCW. “There is no indication of just how much leeway WCW will allow Sabu with his gimmick. Sabu is one of the most spectacular high spot performers in the world, but as the early mat portions of his New Japan matches show, he is not in the league with the other three as far as being a complete performer. ECW hid that by generally using him in situations that emphasized his strengths and camouflaged his weaknesses.” We will get a pretty good answer to that when we get to his WCW matches. The same issue notes that at that point Sabu vs Alex Wright was part of the rumoured card for the second episode of Nitro, which would end up being correct.


On August 22nd ‘95 Sabu would work his first night for World Championship Wrestling, at a taping for WCW Prime in Anderson South Carolina. Sabu would wrestle three matches on the night, as as far as I can tell only one of them would air on television, and I’ll talk about that one when we get to it airing in the timeline. The other two matches were against Chris Kanyon, who himself had only just joined WCW in June, with one being a DQ loss and the other result not being listed. According to the September 4th Observer “Sabu did three matches, two against Chris Kanyon, none of which will air on television but will be used to put together a video to promote his “debut” on the 9/11 Nitro show.” “Jimmy Hart was said to be impressed with Sabu’s willingness to put his body on the line and that’s probably the key person in the organization to impress for a new wrestler.” Can you imagine someone like Jimmy Hart being a fan of Sabu? Maybe show him Born to be Wired please, I’d pay to see his reaction.


In the August 28th Observer, Dave writes “At this point, all he’s agreed to do is work that show and the 9/11 Nitro match with Alex Wright. Most likely he would also work the Detroit Halloween Havoc PPV show with The Sheik as his manager.” He also writes that Sabu and Paul Heyman had apparently made up, and Paul had promised Sabu that if he were to spurn WCW’s offer, he would build ECW around him. “Sabu has apparently told people that Paul Heyman has told him he’d build the company around him and make him the star of his proposed PPV show(s) if he spurned WCW and returned. Heyman said that he and Sabu had reached a secret agreement for a surprise return several weeks ago, before any of the WCW talk began.” it’s not clear though is Sabu joining WCW had any affect on this peacemaking.


On September 11th ‘95, Sabu wrestles his first match on Nitro from Miami Florida. In the opening match of the night he faced Das Wunderkind Alex Wright. The two waste no time at all as the camera can’t even catch up with them early on, while Eric Bischoff on commentary notes that Sabu’s Uncle is the Original Sheik. From the opening bell it takes all of twenty eight seconds before Sabu send Wright to the outside. There is an audible gasp from the crowd as Sabu picks up a chair, but he uses it as a springboard, to miss Wright and launch himself Poetry in Motion style into the guard rail. The two spend the vast majority of the match on the outside, with Alex Wright doing some impressive flying himself. After a victory roll from the top rope, Sabu gets the pinfall victory, but post match he continues attacking Alex. He sends him to the outside, and brings out a table, which back then would have been far less common than we see them used today. In a rather dangerous looking fashion, Sabu long darts himself off the top rope, and he and Wright crash through the table. This causes referee Nick Patrick to reverse the decision, so Wright would win by Disqualification. Speaking in a January 2025 interview with Wrestling Life Online, Alex Wright said of his match with Sabu that he was pretty intimidated at the thought of wrestling him. “I was a little bit nervous because he’s a really crazy guy, but when I actually got to meet him and talk to him he was a really nice guy, and from that moment I said oh no, it’s going to be fine.” Frankly, who could blame Alex for not knowing what he might get before he met Sabu?


The next time Sabu would be seen by WCW fans was the September 25th edition of WCW Prime, which was the match taped in August. Sabu faces Harry New Baker, a wrestler whose name brings up absolutely nothing if you google him, except a famous dentist. On his way to the ring, Dusty Rhodes on commentary calls him “the warrior of the 90’s”, and given the way wrestling on television changed in that decade in part due to the influence of ECW, you could make a case for that. They show early on that Harry doesn’t know what to make of Sabu, as he struggles to do much more than evade Sabu diving at him, and is taken down quickly. While we see Sabu do more holds that we are used to, he still hits many of his springboard dives. He even rather impressively manages to head scissors Harry over the top rope. Sabu hits the Arabian press, which was a moonsault springing off the top rope similar to Rob Van Dam’s split legged moonsault. Perhaps expecting Sabu to vault over onto the apron, the camera almost misses Sabu bouncing back into the ring. They never quite get the hang of this, as the camera would nearly miss the move in every Sabu match going forward, granted that’s not many more chances.


In the September 25th Observer, Dave tells of the plans for Sabu’s pay per view debut, Halloween Havoc. The event was set to take place in Detroit, where his Uncle famously wrestled and then promoted. “Sabu’s opponent on the 10/29 Detroit PPV show will be Jerry Lynn. The attempt to get Too Cold Scorpio, which wasn’t dead as of this past week, is considered dead now. WCW also attempted to get Bobo Brazil to be in whomever’s corner since Brazil and The Sheik (who will be in Sabu’s corner) had probably the biggest feud ever in Detroit. Brazil, who needs a walker to walk, turned WCW down saying he’s retired from the wrestling business. Sabu is working on severe back and shoulder injuries.” In the same newsletter Dave notes that Alex Wright vs Sabu was scheduled for the October 2nd Nitro, though this would not take place. He also adds that Sabu’s next match after that was set to be against future ECW World Champion Jerry Lynn on October 9th, and this match would take place, but not with the Jerry Lynn you might know from ECW. Sabu would face Mr. JL, a short lived Power Rangers inspired gimmick.


Before we get to that, there’s an interesting note in the October 2nd Observer which relates to the meeting between Sabu and Eric Bischoff, which took place on the night of Sabu’s Nitro debut. “The big joke going around is that when Eric Bischoff met Sabu at the Miami tapings, he brought up having grown up in Detroit and watched his uncle wrestle, and then talked about seeing his uncle lose the title to Hulk Hogan (confusing The Sheik with Iron Sheik). The reason he miscalled Sabu’s finisher as the Arabian press is because Sabu told Bischoff the finisher would be the Arabian press, however Nick Patrick counted three on a move that wasn’t supposed to be the finish.” In the same newsletter, Dave adds an interesting note that conveys that Sabu might not have been too happy in New Japan at this time. “Sabu wants to bring The Sheik’s old Detroit U.S. title (which Sheik used to bring to FMW as recently as a few years ago to feud with Onita over) and claim it and feud with Sting over the rightful U.S. champ in November. Sabu is attempting to do anything to break him out of the junior heavyweight typecast and limitations in money and push that label brings.”


Further compounding any negative feelings between Sabu and Heyman, At the ECW show on October 6th, the show opened with Heyman addressing the crowd again, as he did when he fired Sabu. “At this point, a chant of “Sabu” began, reportedly not as a knock on Heyman but just because the situation reminded people of his famous Sabu speech. Heyman said that Sabu was welcome back but that instead on the 28th he was wrestling for the opposition (Dennis Coraluzzo’s show in Woodbury, NJ) because he was mad that Raven, Steve Richards and the Pit Bulls broke so many tables in their match on the previous show.” The tables explanation is clearly Paul keeping his storylines intact, as Sabu had in the past in kayfabe gotten mad at other wrestlers for using tables, considering them his to be thing.

Unfortunately for Sabu though, by this time fans were starting to lose faith in WCW too, as this fan written letter shows that was published in the Observer.


On October 9th ‘95, on the sixth episode of Nitro from Rosemont Illinois, Sabu would have his match with Mr. JL. At nearly four and a half minutes, this would be by quite a way, the longest match Sabu would have in WCW. Before I get to the match, this is completely pointless but during Mr. JL’s entrance there was a Justin RRRRRoberts sighting in the crowd. What follows is a really fun cruiserweight match, with lots of flying around from both wrestlers. One thing that caught my eye though was that every time Sabu would point to the sky as he did in all of his matches, the referee would look up to see what he was pointing at. Every time he did this. Countering a dive from JL into a powerbomb, Sabu would apply the camel clutch and win the match. Post match Sabu throws JL to the apron, and nearly botches a sunset flip powerbomb to the outside. The referee prevents him from doing any more damage as we cut back to the announcers. According to the October 16th Observer though, Sabu used a table and the cameras didn’t catch it, and when we cut back to the ring, Sting and Lex Luger were in for an interview.


The next time that Sabu would appear on WCW television would be quite possibly his first ever match on pay per view. At Halloween Havoc 1995 from Detroit Michigan, Sabu would face Mr. JL again, only this time he would be accompanied by his Uncle. As soon as Sabu slides into the ring, knowing that he usually goes on the attack, JL beats him to it. Once again, within seconds the two are fighting on the outside. As Sabu flies towards the entranceway with an asai moonsault, the Sheik who is standing right behind Lynn didn’t know it was coming, and both Sabu and Lynn crash into him. In a 2023 interview with Title Match Wrestling, Sabu would explain that the Sheik, who already needed a cane to walk, suffered a broken leg from that moonsault. According to Sabu, he would never get the surgery to get it fixed. “He had a hip replacement, so I didn’t break his leg, I broke his hip replacement. He’d had it done twice but he would have had to have it a third time but he died before that.” This match feels not as well planned as the first one, as the two seem to be tethered to this particular corner of the ring for several moves in a row. Sabu gets the win in just a couple of minutes, and post match the Sheik throws a fireball that the cameras almost miss completely. Speaking in a 2024 interview, Jerry Lynn confirmed that Sabu had not told the Sheik about the moonsault, so he had no idea it was coming. On the fireball at the end, Lynn said “after the match was done I didn’t even know, I’m laying there by the ropes and all of a sudden I feel all this heat and see a bright flash go across my face, and at first I didn’t realise what it was.” Lynn goes on to explain that backstage Kevin Sullivan was furious, but Lynn hadn’t known about it beforehand, or that the Sheik had been told not to do it. Given that this was the Sheik’s last public appearance on US soil, with his last being a retirement ceremony organised by FMW, Jerry Lynn became the last person to take a fireball from the Original Sheik.


On the day before Halloween Havoc, Sabu had his northeastern return for the Dennis Corraluzo promoted show, where he wrestled a twenty seven minute match with Devon Storm, who would go on to be Crowbar in WCW. According to the Observer, “Sabu and Devon Storm (Chris Ward) must have torn the house down at the NWA show on 10/28 in Woodbury, NJ before 625 fans. We received more calls about this match than any indie match in recent memory, with nobody rating it less than ****1/2 and most giving it ***** with many long-time area indie fans saying it was the best match they’d ever seen live.” Dave also adds that Sabu had talked with Paul Heyman the day before, though not about returning to ECW anytime soon.


Sabu would have just one more match on Nitro, and that would take place on the next night in Dayton Ohio. He would face Disco Inferno, though a much more interesting match had been planned. The November 13th Observer tells us that “There were a lot of complaints around town in the local newspapers and radio about the WCW Nitro taping on 10/30 in Dayton as five of the seven scheduled matches didn’t take place. Sabu was scheduled to wrestle Eddy Guerrero with Sheik in his corner, but it never took place with Guerrero instead replacing Randy Savage and wrestling Craig Pittman, and Sabu, without Sheik, replaced injured Johnny B. Badd against Disco Inferno.” After another two minute match where Sabu hits some of his dives, he surprisingly pins Disco with a somersault leg drop over the ropes. After the match Sabu lays Disco out on a table, and dives over the ropes, missing Disco, but the table does not break. Disco Inferno manages to get away before we cut back to the announcers, and the last we see of Sabu in WCW is him throwing the stairs around in a fit of anger.


On November 18th 1995, ECW presented November to Remember. After the first match of the night, Paul Heyman would get in the ring, and promise the fans a surprise. The lights would go out in the ECW arena, and when they came back on Sabu was standing in the ring, and would hug Paul Heyman. Later on in the semi main event of the night, Sabu would wrestle Hack Myers, defeating him in a twelve minute match, longer than almost all of his WCW screen time combined. While the ECW fans were very happy on this night, it seems that WCW might not have been, as they did not know that Sabu had taken the booking until it happened. “WCW had been upset with Sabu for numerous reasons, such as him brawling out of the ring more than they wanted him to and going longer than scheduled in some television matches.” Pardon me for injecting an opinion here, but I have to draw a bit more attention to this quote. Firstly they were mad as Sabu for brawling outside the ring too much. It’s entirely possible that Eric Bischoff didn’t know what he was getting, from what was reported he only met Sabu on the day he showed up at Nitro, and had done a taping already by that point, but surely someone should have known what Sabu does in his matches. Then there’s the matches going too long. All except the Mr. JL Nitro match are under four minutes, so how short exactly did they want them to be. It’s also a far cry from the twenty minute workrate matches they originally wanted to sign new talent for before the nitro premiere.


According to Sabu himself, he found out that he had been fired by watching the November 20th episode of Nitro, and hearing a tease for their hotline regarding a star that had been released. He then called the hotline only to hear Mike Tenay reporting on his firing. Dave also notes that Sabu was still being advertised for upcoming matches on the upcoming World War 3 pay per view, as well as a match with Eddie Guerrero on the December 11th Nitro.


From the time Sabu joined WCW, many in the Observer’s letter pages feared that he would be penned in with the other cruiserweights, and that very likely might have happened had he stayed. In both WCW and New Japan, Sabu expressed a desire not to be considered a lightweight worker, for fear that he would become a perennial midcarder. Throughout the time that this video has covered, Sabu had also been working in AAA, and was seen there as a top heel for the promotion, so Sabu saw no reason that he couldn't be a top star elsewhere. After returning to ECW, he would become the World champion again, as well as tag team champion twice with Rob Van Dam, and unofficially the FTW champion, which was Taz’s own property rather than a sanctioned title. He would go on to have an extensive career, wrestling anywhere and everywhere. He would even have a run in WWE, including a bizarre match with John Cena which nearly twenty years later doesn’t feel like it should have been a thing at all. Sabu is truly one of a kind, and frankly should be remembered more, as one of wrestling’s greatest loose cannons.




Sources:

93 House Show: https://www.cagematch.net/?id=2&nr=271&page=4&year=1993&promotion=2

Early ECW https://www.cagematch.net/?id=2&nr=271&page=4&year=1993&promotion=3

WCW Run https://www.cagematch.net/?id=2&nr=271&page=4&year=1995&promotion=2

Wrestling Observer April 17th 1995 - Sabu ECW firing main story https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/april-17-1995-observer-newsletter-wrestlemania-tanks-ufc-v-full-report/

Wrestling Observer July 31st 1995 - First mention of Sabu and WCW https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/july-31-1995-observer-newsletter-hase-wins-japanese-election-wwe-your/

Wrestling Observer August 7th 1995 - negotiations failing https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/august-7-1995-wrestling-observer-newsletter-ricky-morton-fired-two/

Wrestling Observer August 21st 1995 - New signing Sabu, Benoit, Eddie and Malenko ahead of Nitro https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/august-21-1995-wrestling-observer-newsletter-many-signees-new-monday/

Wrestling Observer September 4th 1995 WCW Prime taping report https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/sept-4-1995-wrestling-observer-newsletter-downfall-uwfi-and-working/

Wrestling Observer August 28th WCW plans and Heyman reunion https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/aug-28-1995-wrestling-observer-newsletter-monday-night-wars-about/

Alex Wright on Sabu in 2025: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urxUvUMLy7U

Sabu vs Harry New Baker, WCW Prime September 25th 1995 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uptISRrLz1A

Wrestling Observer September 25th 1995 Halloween Havoc plans https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/sept-25-1995-wrestling-observer-newsletter-tons-details-lex-luger-jump/

Wrestling Observer October 2nd 1995 - Bischoff joke and NJPW note https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/oct-2-1995-wrestling-observer-newsletter-major-changes-ufc-coming/

Wrestling Observer October 9th 1995 No return to ECW and WCW not looking good https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/oct-9-1995-wrestling-observer-newsletter-bill-watts-wwe-moment-more/

Wrestling Observer October 16th 1995 Missed table and Paul addresses ECW fans again https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/oct-16-1995-wrestling-observer-newsletter-muto-beats-takada-warrior/

Sabu on the Sheik’s broken leg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4UH0kXzn8Q

Wrestling Observer November 6th 1995 NWA show note https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/nov-6-1995-observer-newsletter-halloween-havoc-95-wwe-buyrate-plunge/

Wrestling Observer November 13th 1995 - Advertised matches not happening https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/nov-13-1995-wrestling-observer-newsletter-monday-night-wars-continue/

Jerry Lynn on the fireball https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0kfCDB2xikWrestling Observer November 27th 1995 Sabu’s ECW return https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/nov-27-1995-wrestling-observer-newsletter-laura-brevetti-investigation/

The Story of Cookiegate - when TNA "invaded" WWE

 

“WWE & TNA sign multi-year deal to continue partnership”. To a fan of a certain vintage, that headline might as well read “hell has frozen over”. Granted NXT sending people to Impact isn’t as dramatic as other “hell frozen over” moments, like the returns to WWE of Bret Hart, CM Punk and others, but it’s still pretty bizarre to me to see those two logos next to each other in 2025. WWE and TNA have a long and complicated history together, mostly negative, or at least passive aggressive, with TNA often being the chihuahua biting at WWE’s ankles. What better time than now then, so talk about maybe the most passive aggressive acts one wrestling company has ever done to another. At the very least one of the snarkiest. I’m talking about what became known as Cookiegate. In this video, we're going to examine what exactly happened, who was involved.




2004 is an interesting year for TNA, in that a lot of big changes were made in the still very young company. In this year they ditched their weekly pay per view format, moved to monthly pay per views, starting with Victory Road in November 2004, along with their first major television show, Impact, which over six different US channels and what feels like a dozen or more time slot changes, still exists today.




Victory Road was built around a hyped up main event where Jeff Hardy would challenge Jeff Jarrett for the NWA World title in a ladder match. While you could argue that the rest of the show wasn’t the most stacked of cards. It did very well for what TNA expected. For the next one, Turning Point, they went all out to find new draws to keep the momentum going. At the end of Victory Road, while Jeff Hardy was nearing the title at the top of the ladder, he would be turned on by Scott Hall and the debuting Kevin Nash, who would form an Elvis inspired faction with Jarrett, known as the Kings of Wrasslin’. I’m sure you don’t need telling that I’m not an American, but even I know that Hall who was from Maryland, which is just below the mason dixon line, nor Michigan born Nash are the most ‘southern’ of wrestlers, making the Elvis stuff come across a bit weird. The Kings would lay waste to TNA’s most popular babyfaces, AJ Styles and 3 Live Kru, more of them in a bit, before a foot is shown getting out of a limo backstage. That foot is shown to belong to the Macho Man Randy Savage. All of this is to say that at the next TNA pay per view, Randy would wrestle what ended up being his last ever match, by which I mean he would show up at the end of a six man tag team match, as part of the odd sounding team of he, AJ Styles and Jeff Hardy, to defeat the Kings of Wrestling.




Though you might think that the in ring return of Randy Savage, who hadn’t wrestled a match for a major wrestling promotion since WCW in 2000, might have been enough of a draw, TNA still was looking for other ways to draw some extra buys, even through a daft attention grab like Cookiegate. By the way, this is not important but in case you were wondering, Randy’s final match on pay per view at this point had been five years earlier at WCW Road Wild, where he defeated of all people, Dennis Rodman. But what actually was Cookiegate, and how did it come about? In the Summer of 2004, TNA began taping Impact at Universal Studios in Orlando Florida. Ordinarily I’d dive into the beginnings of this partnership, but I did that quite a while ago on this channel. Sometime after TNA had begun it’s residency in Orlando, WWE sent half of their roster to a lot at Universal Studios, to film a commercial for their upcoming Royal Rumble pay per view. This would be the 2005 Rumble advert, the one that resembled West Side Story if you were on hallucinogens. A lot of top level talent was brought in to film the advert, with one person quoted in the Wrestling Observer estimating that the shoot cost anywhere up to half a million dollars. (Nov22) They noted that traditionally wrestling pay per view commercials had only really existed to push the date of their shows, but how dare they try to insert a little creativity. These could possibly have served as a trial run of sorts for the 2005 series of Wrestlemania commercials that were all parodies of well known scenes in movies, from Forest Gump to Pulp Fiction to Gladiator and a few more.




When TNA learned that WWE would be literally in their backyard, they rolled out the welcome wagon, sort of. Members of the TNA roster, Shane Douglas, Traci Brooks, Abyss, BG James, Konnan and Ron Killings all approached WWE’s production, claiming that they came in peace, bringing balloons, and cookies with them. They also brought a camera man, and clearly intended to use the footage they captured of their WWE counterparts. WWE, behaving like the adults in the situation, quickly instructed their talent to have nothing to do with the TNA stars, and so TNA didn’t get a ton of footage. They coined the term ‘Cookiegate’ themselves, implying that they had some scandalous footage that made WWE in some way look bad. To be very clear, they did not, or at least they didn’t air anything that made WWE look bad. Two hours and eighteen minutes into the pay per view broadcast, after the Randy Savage tag match and before the actual main event, a six sides of steel match for the NWA tag team titles, Mike Tenay and Don West throw to TNA’s Director of Authority Dusty Rhodes, who demands that the production truck plays Cookiegate.




The first thing we see is Douglas introducing the segment, along with Traci carrying cookies and Abyss holding balloons. I’ll say it here so I don’t have to mention it again, there are several references to Traci bringing cookies and muffins. Shane says that they are there to welcome WWE because quote “they’re here to check out what a professional wrestling programme looks like.” They cut to footage showing BG James and R-Truth, along with a ton of blurring, presumably to hide the WWE wrestlers faces. We then see the TNA crew interacting with this wrestler, who at first I thought could be Eddie Guerrero but his outfit doesn’t match, so maybe Luther Reigns? No relation, obviously. We hear BG James a lot here, mostly talking about wanting some of their catering, and asking for various people to come out, like Vince McMahon and Chris Benoit. He tells one person “Vince might remember me, I made a lot of money for him.” We then see this bloke, who quite clearly seems to be Rey Mysterio, who clearly didn’t get the message about not interacting. BG James then tells us with glee that Ron Killings stole their Mahi Mahi. FInally we get a group shot of all the TNA crew, including Konnan who doesn’t at all look shifty. He enters the shot carrying a two by four with a towel taped to it, which it took me a sec to realise meant that they were waving the white flag. They make a few inside jokes about the idea that Vince might be there, and BG and Killings one again reiterate that they stole some food, and we cut back to Mike Tenay and Don West. Bless Mike and Don, but they did their damndest to push the question of how WWE could have threatened to sue them over some generous hospitality, but not even they could save this. Mike even asks if this is anything like DX driving a little jeep up to WCW’s back doors. It’s not the same, because that was at least funny.




I mentioned earlier that this aired near the end of the pay per view, which you might think would be to build suspense and intrigue? No, it was to preface it with a bunch of daft sketches. Throughout the night, in an attempt to get over how WWE didn’t want the footage to air, a fake Triple H and Vince McMahon wandered around the impact zone like bumbling fools trying to find the tape. These aired throughout the night and varied in quality, but I’ll be honest and say that I laughed out loud once, when the bloke playing Triple H says he was looking for the tape but he found the gym. The Vince character, who they refer to as “Mack Daddy”, gets assaulted by a little person and leaves in an ambulance. The internet tells me that these two were played by Bobby Roode and Petey Williams, and to be fair, the guy playing Triple H is quite funny. The Wrestling Observer claims that the Vince character was played by a ring announcer called Tim Welch, while Triple H was played by Johnny Devine, whose trunks look similar to those of Hector Garza, who owned a pair of trunks that had a H on them. All of this was supposed to make WWE look bad, but many fans just thought TNA looked a little sad for airing it, and promoting it beforehand as some sort of expose.




In his review of the show, Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer described the Cookiegate footage as “innocuous” and “almost useless”. He noted that WWE wrestler’s faces were blurred, confirming that one of them was Luther Reigns. He also noted that Rey Mysterio and Konnan in particular had been close since they trained together in the 80’s, which is likely why he stuck around longer than most. Luckily Rey was one half of the Smackdown tag team champions at the time, and he continued to win his matches after this, so clearly wasn’t punished for his part in hanging around.




While TNA claimed that they came in peace, they certainly picked an interesting set of wrestlers to send over. While a couple had no link with WWE at all, most had some axes to grind with their former employers. Let's start with Traci Brooks, who at the time would have been TNA’s longest tenured female performer, which is a polite way of saying that her and Trinity were TNA’s entire women's division for a fair while. As far as I can find, she has never had any link with WWE. Speaking in an interview with Highspots not long after Cookiegate, Traci gave her account of what happened. “We were shooting kind of like a desperate Housewives thing and we had cookies and I was all dressed up, and the boys thought it was funny.” On WWE’s reaction she said “whether Vince was pissed off or not I have no clue. He shouldn't because You' never sell a rib and he shouldn't have been mad, but it got exposure for us, it got us buyrates for the next pay per view and it was funny and people talked about it so I was glad to be a part of it.” On the surface what Traci said here seems fairly innocuous, but it does show that she doesn’t exactly seem bothered if WWE doesn’t call after this. She would remain with TNA until 2012, and in 2023 was inducted into the Impact Hall of Fame.




The other fairly innocent party is the Monster, Abyss. Looking back it's hard to remember a time when Abyss wasn't known for insane bumps. While he actually competed on the first TNA event using the name Justice, he would begin his run as Abyss in June 2003, and so had only played the character for nearly a year and a half. As noted this was long before Abyss was known primarily for hardcore matches and an obsession with landing on drawing pins, or thumb tacks in American. Being a big intimidating looking masked wrestler, he was often compared to Mankind and Kane back then. In 2019, Chris Parks would join WWE as a producer, and would briefly appear on Smackdown in the pandemic era, as AJ Styles’ statistician, but this is as close as he ever got to being a WWE wrestler. Well, sort of. There was a rumour back in 2007 that he might have been WWE bound, possibly even to face off with the Undertaker at Wrestlemania 23, which could have been a lot better than that Mark Henry match the year earlier. On a 2015 episode of Jim Ross’s Ross Report podcast, Abyss said that John Laurinitis offered him a contract and a main event position. He said Tommy Dreamer had helped him get contact, as he worked in the WWE office at the time. Abyss then said he turned WWE down at the last minute out of loyalty to TNA, the company he saw from the ground up, saying "I would rather have been part of something versus taking the chance of going somewhere and just being a number." He was asked if he regretted his decision by Ring Rust Radio, and Abyss said “Being a part of TNA since the beginning is something that I am extremely proud of. I'm not saying other places aren't great places to go work, but for me the decision to stay on that occasion and several others is that I love TNA.” When asked about creative plans by JR, Abyss said he was due to debut at the 2007 Royal Rumble, and start a story with Undertaker that would have led them to Wrestlemania. Undertaker would win that years Royal Rumble match, and then go on to beat Batista for the World title at Wrestlemania 23, so I think he did alright. Abyss also won the NWA World title from Sting at the end of 2006, perhaps for his loyalty if you believe his side of things.





BG James, perhaps better known as the Road Dogg, might be the most controversial choice for TNA to have sent. Having left WWE in early 2001 due to issues in his personal life, Road Dogg might be the unluckiest wrestler of all time. Speaking on the WWE Network’s Monday Night War series in 2014, he told the story of attending the final WCW Nitro in the hope of getting a job there, only be the last person in wrestling to discover that WWE had bought the company, and there was no chance of a job any time soon. Road Dogg, then using the name BG James, would be an early hire for TNA, and would stay until late 2009. James and Billy Gunn have admitted before that during this time in their careers they were loose cannons to put it politely, and they said many things that they later regretted. For example the two once took part in an RF Video shoot interview where they went off on WWE, Triple H, Shawn Michaels and more targets they would end up apologising to. They also talked a fair bit of smack about WWE on television, renaming their team the Voodoo Kin Mafia, VKM, aye, and would repeatedly challenge Shawn and Triple H to a fight quote”at the alamo”, which obviously never happened. On a September 2023 episode of his podcast titled “Oh you didn’t know”, Road Dogg noted that “the soundstage that TNA shot it was literally right next door to the soundstage that WWE was recording in.”




I can’t move past BG James in this video without getting to the Mahi mahi that he was so insistent on drawing attention to. In his podcast Road Dogg explains that the reason for this was because WWE’s catering was so far above what TNA provided them, making their own sound like something out of the Fyre Festival. “In TNA at the time we got like a boxed lunch and it was literally like a sandwich, an apple and a thing of chips.”




Ron Killings, better known to WWE fans as R-Truth was another fairly recent former employee who was part of the welcoming committee. Killings had been a tag team partner of the Road Dogg, using the name K-Kwik before his release. He hung around a little longer before he too was released in late 2001. As far as why he was released, in The February 11th 2002 Wrestling Observer, Dave Meltzer reported that Killings had given a recent interview where he stated that he was given no reason for his firing, and then when he inquired nobody got back to him. You could see why he might have had a chip on his shoulder then.




Konnan and Shane Douglas also both have history with WWE prior to Cookiegate, and both were there around the same time in the early 90’s. Konnan was only in the company briefly, and was slated to bring life to the Max Moon character. Konnan actually created the character himself, even playing the role in WWE a couple of times, before being replaced by Paul Diamond. According to Konnan himself though, it seems that not moving to WWE was his own choice. Speaking in an interview he said that “I was blowing up in Mexico, I was doing a soap opera and a rap record and I was tired of lugging boxes over to WWE and I was like I’m a star here, what do I need this for?”




Shane Douglas, having been a Dynamic Dude in WCW, and the Franchise in ECW, would become Dean Douglas in WWE. As I’m sure you can imagine, he wasn’t entirely thrilled with that. But then Shane Douglas doesn’t seem the type thats thrilled by much at all. His role in Cookiegate just seems to be shit stirrer, as he is often seen grinning throughout the footage. Mind you, with a list of enemies as long as Shane Douglas has, that’s hardly surprising.




So those are the wrestlers involved, but did you know that none of them were the original choice? Dave Meltzer mentioned in the November 22nd 2004 Observer that the crew that showed up weren’t their original choice. “TNA set up an idea of a reprise of DX invading WCW, as they were going to have Hall & Nash invade the WWE Royal Rumble tapings on 11/10 that were held at Universal Studios.” He then adds that Hall and Hash declined to be part of it, possibly because they were only signed to limited dates and this would have counted as one, but also because the likely didn’t want to burn any bridges with WWE, clever really. In a funny and quite self aware manner, on Road Dogg’s podcast when his co-host informs him that Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were the original choices, Road Dogg’s reaction is “well that would have been a lot better.”




There is one person left to mention, and that’s the man behind the camera for TNA, David Sahadi. Having previously worked for WWE, he knew a lot of the talent who were at the shoot, and was the one who first discovered that WWE were going to be there. During his time working for them, he made a memorable video package that aired for Wrestlemania 14 featuring legends like Classy Freddie Blassie and Ernie Ladd. The video was so emotional in it’s tone that upon viewing it Vince McMahon wept, which is dangerous really, because it could have caused him to rust. Sahadi had left WWE in ‘03, joining TNA in the following year and the noticeable improvements in TNA’s production quality in the early years of Impact are often attributed to him. Unfortunately for Sahadi, according to the man himself speaking to Conrad Thompson in 2024, his role in Cookiegate may have resulted in some personal loss. David’s Father had been a longtime employee, and he alleges that his father was punished for his role in Cookiegate. “My Dad was given a Legends contract by Vince McMahon Jr because he worked with Vince Sr. He did a lot of stuff with Mike Tyson during the Attitude Era, with Lawrence Taylor, so he was getting a $3,000 check every single month.” He then goes on to explain how WWE took that monthly cheque away, and he alleges that it was because Kevin Dunn wanted to get back at Sahadi for his work with TNA. “I found out that there was a meeting in Kevin's office with some people who I won't mention, and they said, 'How do we get back at Sahadi for him trying to screw us? Again, I wasn't going to screw them’ I was trying to get PR for TNA.”




So that was TNA’s attempt at getting some PR out of WWE coming to their backyard, a not too serious attempt at invading WWE. Before the footage had even aired Dave noted in the Observer that “The guys who came out, like Jericho, Guerrero, Benoit, Mysterio, etc. were guys that everyone in wrestling likes and they ended up just talking. Orton and Heidenreich came out and were nice to all the TNA guys, so the idea of some big confrontation fell apart.” They only exception seemed to be John Garburick, who fans saw in Tough Enough, who told the TNA crew that they would be sued. It seems though that the worst WWE did was to file a complaint with Universal Studios. Despite this and a legal letter that was sent to them, TNA clearly wanted to make more of an issue out of this. “On the 11/16 tapings, Mike Tenay announced that fans could vote on the web site whether they want to see the footage or not. Bob Carter has given the company the go-ahead to air the footage even with the WWE threats, and of course fans will vote to see it and of course it will air against WWE’s wishes.” This led to an interesting reaction, as beforehand Cookiegate was made to sound like a much bigger deal than it ended up being, and TNA’s wrestlers ended up looking nothing like DX did at CNN center. Back when DX did their invasion of WCW, it would have ended very differently had the WCW wrestlers warmly greeted Triple H and crew, and they didn’t even bring cookies.





Sources:

TNA Turning Point 2004: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4wPsqswVUw 2:18:08

WWE Royal Rumble 2005 commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wom0eCbH4HM

Wrestling Observer December 13th 2004 - Turning Point review https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/december-13-2004-observer-newsletter-paul-heyman-wwe-writing-team-tna/

Highspots interview with Traci Brooks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwyEG4ShLOo&t=2852s

Abyss Undertaker rumour - https://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/2015/11/abyss-on-why-he-didnt-sign-with-wwe-in-2006-603699/

Abyss on regrets: https://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/2015/01/abyss-on-if-he-regrets-not-signing-with-wwe-and-facing-588738/

Oh You Didn’t Know #76, September 23rd 2023 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPaUAYI09pg

Wrestling Observer February 11th 2002 - Killings on his firing https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/february-11-2002-observer-newsletter-questions-surrounding-njpw-talent/

Konnan on Max Moon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwuBHKxtriU

Wrestling Observer November 22nd 2004 - Hall and Nash https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/november-22-2004-observer-newsletter-survivor-series-review-samoa-joe/

David Sahadi role in Cookiegate - https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/david-sahadi-recalls-wwe-firing-his-father-hurt-him-taking-part-tna-cookies-vignette