The special TMPT Feature Episode #12 welcomed in ECW Original, the Homicidal, Suicidal, and Genocidal, Sabu. Sabu stopped by for a very rare interview to tell us all about his book “Scars, Silence, & Superglue” and discusses how putting together this long-awaited autobiography shows exactly how his actions always spoke louder than his words. From his days training with his Uncle, "The Sheik", through his big break in Japan it was Sabu who innovated the never before seen hardcore imagery that penetrated the wrestling business in the mid-90s. But it wasn't until the connection with then Tod Gordon's ECW that would catapult Sabu into the ICON status. In this excerpt, Sabu gives his opinion on whether or not Paul Heyman is the “genius” everyone makes him out to be and why his time spent in the WWE was not a high point in his storied career. The full episode can be downloaded at this link.
Time in WWE during the ECW reboot:
“Well, they lied to me. They said they were going to keep Sabu the way he was and push it the way ECW was and keep it in the small venues and all that stuff which I agreed with because I didn't want to do the big venues. I like the more intimate venues where the people think they are special and part of the assembly line but anyways I wasn't happy there. First couple of months was okay but they slowly wanted to completely change what they said and they went from liking Sabu to not liking Sabu and I could feel it."
"It just looked like WWE with different lettering, the ECW lettering. It was the same show and no different. There was no extreme to it, no hardcore to it and we couldn't even have the ECW Extreme Rules match every night. We had them every other night. Some nights we'd go to house shows and not one extreme match."
"I was afraid people were thinking we were lazy or something but we were being told that we couldn't break a table and could not do this and could not do that. Before I could say, could I do it? Before it they would say well you can do that tomorrow so instead of me doing stuff and saying I couldn't do it anymore they'd stop me before I could even do it."
Was WWE’s ECW set up to fail?
"I don't think they tried to kill ECW, they were just trying to show that WWE style is stronger I guess. I don't know, I don't think they were trying to kill it because why would Vince spend the money on it to try and kill something? He could've killed it by not using it again."
For this and every other episode of The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling please subscribe to them on iTunes, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Podomatic, and Player FM. Follow their shows on Twitter @TwoManPowerTrip, @rasslinpal & @The3ThreatPod. Thanks to them for the transcript.
