The 1996 Royal Rumble is remembered primarily for Shawn Michaels outlasting the field and eliminating Diesel to secure his second Rumble victory. What fans never saw, however, was a planned wrinkle that could have dramatically altered WWE’s relationship with ECW years earlier than it eventually did.
According to Bruce Prichard, that match was originally discussed as a launching pad for Sabu, a full decade before Sabu would finally appear on a WWE stage.
Recalling the situation on Something To Wrestle, Prichard explained that the idea began with a call to Paul Heyman. “I contacted [Paul Heyman] first, told him I’d like to use Sabu,” Prichard said. With that hurdle cleared, Prichard reached out directly. “So I called Sabu and said: ‘Hey, we’d like to use you in the Rumble.’”
From a creative standpoint, the plan was carefully constructed to preserve Sabu’s aura. Prichard noted there was discussion about having Sabu eliminate himself rather than be thrown out, ensuring his ECW credibility remained intact. That approach, however, ran into a familiar obstacle—outside representation.
“Sabu says to me, ‘I don’t have a problem with it but you need to speak to my uncle, The Sheik,’” Prichard recalled, referring to The Sheik, who played a major role in advising Sabu’s career at the time. Sabu reportedly felt his uncle was better suited to judge whether the appearance made sense, though he declined to make the call himself.
The conversation ended abruptly. “He says, ‘Yeah, nah, it’s not good for him!’ Okay? ‘Well, hey, thank you for your time.’ Hangs up,” Prichard said. The response was enough to shut the door entirely. “It just ended there, I was like: ‘Fuck this!’” he added, making it clear he had little patience for negotiating through intermediaries rather than dealing directly with talent.
With that, the idea was scrapped, and WWE moved forward without Sabu. The missed opportunity delayed his WWE arrival until 2006, when he finally joined the company in the build to ECW One Night Stand, during WWE’s brief ECW revival.
That framing adds context to how different the wrestling landscape was in the mid-1990s, when cross-promotional politics, personal advisors, and territorial loyalties often derailed creative possibilities. A Sabu appearance in the 1996 Royal Rumble could have reshaped perceptions of ECW talent years before the invasion-era experimentation.
Looking back, Prichard’s story underscores how close WWE came to pulling the trigger on an ECW crossover well ahead of its time. While history went another direction, the anecdote offers a glimpse into an alternate path, one where Sabu’s chaotic presence might have shaken WWE’s biggest match long before fans were ready for it.
