Sabu On If He Thinks Paul Heyman Is A Genius, WWE Lying To Him, Hardcore Vs. Extreme Styles
This week's 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.
PLEASE CREDIT CHAD & JP OF THE TWO MAN POWER TRIP OF WRESTLING FOR THIS TRANSCRIPTION
Writing new book, SABU: "Scars, Silence, & Superglue":
"It kind of came out on accident. I was telling somebody a couple of stories and he said you should put them down and I did and that kind of turned into a book."
Any hesitation writing:
"Yeah, because I'm old school. I don't want to expose the business or expose myself but I just gave into it and just said f*ck it."
Did he enjoy writing the book?
"No. It was a pain in the ass and I don't like to see what I am saying to people as quotes. When I say them a lot of my facts are wrong but my memories are wrong too so I was corrected on a few things and most of it pretty much was accurate. When I actually see the actual truth, I go man, I don't want that said about me or I don't want to say that. But then I did and I went ahead and did it anyways."
Fitting the "ECW Style":
"It wasn't extreme when I first got there. It was just hardcore. Hardcore as in bad lighting, sh*tty arena and they did gimmick matches. When I came in I added acrobatics to that hardcore and I made it extreme. There wasn't the word extreme until I came into it. Not that I like the word extreme, I like hardcore better and extreme I just don't like it because it's too ordinary.
"Hardcore means that you get down to the basics and you fight each other. Extreme means you use out of the ordinary weapons or something extremely different. Hardcore means you are just down bare-knuckled fighting hard."
Was he surprised when ECW went out of business and bought by WWE:
"The buying part yes. Paul was having everybody mother f*ck Vince for two years and it turns out he was working with him and getting fat on it. We weren't getting fat, we all lost weight. He was getting fat and we were feeling sorry for him because he said he was getting skinny. He'd say everyone is b—hing about their checks and I can't even buy a pair of socks. We'd say poor Paul and then we find out whatever he was getting from Vince for years. He was paid for a while just to watch their shows and give an opinion. Vince paid him just for that while we was working for us."
Is Paul Heyman a genius?
"No, because nobody would let him run away with their company the way Tod Gordon let him run away with their company. First, when he came into the company he had to follow Tod Gordon's rules on wrestling but then when I came into it we didn't follow anybody's rules and he let Paul do what he wanted to do because he thought Paul was a genius for bringing me in. But nobody would have given him that credit if it wasn't for me and him hooking up and people seeing what was really in his mind."
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."
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