Sabu was known by many monikers throughout his career as a trailblazing hardcore wrestling icon.
While he was always billed as being suicidal, homicidal and genocidal toward his opponents, the most succinct way to refer to Sabu and his body of work is legendary. His most violent matches were not everyone’s cup of tea, but on the flip side to that in recent days since his passing it’s also become clear that Terrence Brunk was beloved by fans, friends and the people he spent his under-the-radar career with fighting in blood-soaked battles that would shame most Mortal Kombat finishers.
As fans we only ever saw part of the story. We understand what we see in clips, on programs, at conventions or on social media, but that’s only a sliver of reality. The kind of work Sabu did limited his options professionally, wrestling only 58 of his 1,700+ matches in WWE or WCW. Because of that he never made it big, never signed that big money deal, and spent most of his career in either ECW or TNA, in Japan, or battled through injuries and health issues on the indies.
He was all of us in a way. Different arena, same abstract story.
Strip away the wrestling aspects and look at him purely as someone who found what they loved to do, made a career out of it and worked their ass off to excel — albeit “unconventionally” — at that passion. Through the hardships, blood and broken bodies, he treated people well and had the respect of his peers. He may not have ever had a main event at WrestleMania, or had his face on a beer can nor an endorsement deal, but when his family needed help, many of the people he did right by throughout his adult life came through to help pay his funeral expenses with a GoFundMe campaign.
Not only that, the effort exceeded the goal. Whether it was the number of small donations that were made since launch, or larger ones by Joel Gertner, Joey Janela, Chris Jericho, or Scott D’Amore (who matched everyone’s donations over the course of one night), Sabu and his family were taken care of. That’s an impact on people’s lives that you can never fathom or grasp until that moment. In that regard Sabu was among the richest. He worked hard, lived well, and had his ups and downs like any of us. Time and again people stood by him when it mattered.
“Sabu’s humble, generous, and funny demeanor outside of the ring impacted those who knew him just as much as inside it. Sabu gifted the world with his presence and will live on forever. Now that he has left this earth, he will be reunited with his beloved mother, uncle, and Melissa.” – Antonio DeAngelo, via Sabu’s Go Fund Me.
That funny, humble person was contrasted by the fearless man he became when he stepped between the ropes. Whether those ropes were cables or strings of unforgiving barbed wire, it didn’t matter and his objective was the same — create a moment that won’t soon be forgotten and that will live on past his time with us. For the last several days I’ve rewatched a ton of old Sabu stuff I have on hand, between some old ECW compilations or a collection of TNA’s bloodiest brawls that so happen to feature Sabu’s hardcore stylings. From there TNA shared a two-hour upload of Sabu’s matches in the company. Those types of career highlights are all over the place from YouTube to Daily Motion.
In my opinion one of the most iconic matches he ever had was in August 1997 against Terry Funk for the ECW championship at “Born to be Wired.” This no-rope barbed wire match was not for the faint of heart. If you’ve never seen the match, which Sabu eventually wins, you can watch it here. Early in the match Funk starts to throw Sabu back and forth from one barbed entanglement to another.
Within minutes Sabu’s tights were ripped, his back and arms were carved up, and when you look at the type of barbed wire they used and compare it to what you might see today, it looks like it had no give and had more barbs by comparison. The two of them had a couple more exchanges, and at one point Sabu reversed a throw and sent Funk into the barbed wire for a relaxing rest. Then he set up a chair, and if you’ve seen a Sabu match you know what came next.
After attacking Funk with a piece of the wire, Sabu scurried across to the far side of the ring, ran and springboarded off the chair and sailed into a trapped Funk. But that was not enough. With Funk propped up in the corner, Sabu set up the chair once more, ran to the far side and springboarded from the chair again. As Sabu sailed through the air Funk moved. Sabu landed directly into the barbed wire, and right away you knew something happened. The camera doesn’t zoom in right away, but once it does you can see Sabu’s left bicep was completely sliced open and there was blood running down his arm and onto the canvas.
Now, most normal people would stop, and if something like this was to happen in a major promotion today the match would probably be stopped. But no, no, no… not in Paul Heyman’s ECW. So, after a quick chat with manager Bill Alfonso, Fonzie ran to the back and re-emerged at ringside with some athletic tape. Now, I assume you can guess where this is going. Alfonso handed Sabu the tape, Sabu unwrapped it and then quickly started to tape up his entire left arm with the tape just to stop the bleeding. Funk wasn’t having any of that, so he grabbed Sabu and did a neckbreaker on the chair. And as Sabu was being driven down, he’s still crudely wrapping his arm. He finishes while selling the move on the mat, springs up and starts throwing hands with Funk.
You can watch the rest, but just know we are only in minute 11 or 12 of a 22 minute match, and the match ends with them both entangled in barbed wire and with Sabu securing his first ECW championship.
Sabu was more than one match, but for me this one defined his aura. And as Taz put it at Dynamite on Wednesday, Sabu had aura before aura was definable in wrestling. Maybe that’s true, or perhaps that can be argued, but with Sabu I knew two things to be true:
- In every match he was going to give everything he had and as much as his chronically breaking down body was going to allow him to.
- When the lights went out, Sabu was coming.
Sabu was as impactful as others, he just never had the platform to fully showcase it. Nor did his style lend itself to the mainstream. He might not have been the best conventional wrestler or the most gifted athlete, but he cared about the craft, wanted to put on a good show even when others should have been telling him to slow down, and was unwaveringly passionate about wrestling. He was also just a straight up badass willing to bandage up a profusely bleeding arm with tape just to wrestle another 10 minutes.
He has been referred to as an innovator because of his high risk style coupled with a penchant for hardcore wrestling the likes of which can still make you cringe. To this day his entrance amid the shadows is often imitated and with exceptions poorly replicated as frequently. Sabu personified effort and passion matched only by his character out of ring. That’s why people remember him fondly with reverence as a friend, co-worker, a legend, and for some their favourite wrestler.
In a business where moments can be fleeting and memories fade, or when we go back to watch a clip and what we thought we knew doesn’t hold up anymore, that will never be the case with Sabu. His career will live on for as long as there is a platform to post matches and highlight packages to. His legend will grow with years, and even if you don’t love his style, you at a minimum have to respect how he carried himself, how much he cared, how hard he fought and how he gave back to a business that gave him very little in return.
I think we’d be so lucky to find something we cared about that much.
A former ECW and NWA world champion, Sabu was the anti-thesis to the polish and manicured presentation of ’90s-era North American wrestling. He was just a guy who wore simple boots, kind of flashy colourful pants, and had his name scrawled on a thin piece of athletic tape around his arm. Sabu had scraggly hair and physically wasn’t much to look at, but his scars told the story of someone who was hard-working and passionately cared. He was someone who defied expectation and whose aura drew people into his nexus of natural athleticism, grit, violence and ruthless aggression before it was a catchphrase on a t-shirt.
There will be a void now every time the arena lights go down and he is not there when they come back on. So when they do, remember him fondly and point to the sky in tribute to the legacy of the legendary Sabu.
