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/
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