Over and Underachievers

[NEWM]

It's a bit much to say that Sabu is a "never was", more like a "should have been". He was one of the top in ECW and is still remembered as such. He should have had a lot more work in Japan, but he did that too.

 

Also, as I recall, the PPVs you refer to were the WWECW stuff, so it makes sense that Sabu should have a headline roll in that, given that he played such a pivotal act in the original ECW. Also, i'd say Sabu/Mysterio is pretty logical matchmaking, for obvious reasons.

 

It is a bit much to say he was a "never was", that was why I settled on "hardly-ever-was".

 

He did well though. One Night Stand was obvious, but he fought John Cena at Vengeance, The Big Show at Summerslam, and managed to hang around long enough to get a Rumble and Wrestlemania payday. Considering his physical condition and total lack of connection to the product after about September of 2006, he was a lucky fucker all told.

[CleetusVanDamme]

I remember being amazed that they kept him on after his SummerSlam match with Big Show.

 

He had a ladder match with RVD to win that title shot that was ridiculously entertaining because of how bad it was. They managed to botch everything they attempted. The version that made tv had several minutes cut from it as well, so God only knows how bad some of the stuff they deemed not being worthy of tv was. Must have been spectacular!

[AceOfWands]

Well, Sabu never made seven figures or anything, but I thought he was back wrestling again. I know he had a run in WWECW, and I liked his little run in TNA, I think they were wrong to get rid of him, I thought booking him against Samoa Joe was great matchmaking. He'd have made a good X Division champion.

[Devon Malcolm]

Well, Sabu never made seven figures or anything, but I thought he was back wrestling again. I know he had a run in WWECW, and I liked his little run in TNA, I think they were wrong to get rid of him, I thought booking him against Samoa Joe was great matchmaking. He'd have made a good X Division champion.

 

I remember that match against Joe. That was the one where, playing a babyface, he pulled out a spike halfway through the match and tried to stab Joe, the heel, in the head with it.

[AceOfWands]

Yeah?

 

He's Sabu...

 

[Truth]

Sabu made himself into a wrestling legend but he definately should have achieved more, i.e. longer runs with "the big two" WCW and WWE. He stayed in WCW for only a handful of matches in 1995, and he should have had a longer run in the WWECW than just about a year (2006-2007). There is no doubt that he has had a long and interesting wrestling career

[LaGoosh]

I remember Sabu having some good matches in his WWECW run. I can't remember what show it was but he had at least one fucking fantastic match with the Big Show (definitely one of both mans best matches), I seem t oremember it ending with Big Show catching Sabu from a dive and chokeslamming him through a table at the end.

[The Reverend]

I was watching the HOF from last year and someone who I thought was seriously an underacheiver was Sunny. Not in wrestling so much, but in general. Back in the day she was frigging hot, had a ton of personality, was a great talker and just oozed star quality.

and you wonder why mainstream media never picked up on her - she would've been a massive star in both movies in TV.

[Stone Cold Jane Austen]

Sabu is one of the biggest disappointments I can think of in wrestling. Before I saw any ECW, he was built up as being some unreasonable hardcore badass but when I saw him, he just kept falling over and doing dumb, over contrived spots. Then I went and saw the early stuff and he was no better.

[King Pitcos]

I remember Sabu having some good matches in his WWECW run. I can't remember what show it was but he had at least one fucking fantastic match with the Big Show (definitely one of both mans best matches), I seem t oremember it ending with Big Show catching Sabu from a dive and chokeslamming him through a table at the end.

That was at SummerSlam, and it was laughable.

[Merzbow]

Sabu is one of the biggest disappointments I can think of in wrestling. Before I saw any ECW, he was built up as being some unreasonable hardcore badass but when I saw him, he just kept falling over and doing dumb, over contrived spots. Then I went and saw the early stuff and he was no better.

 

Spot on, even in my most indyriffic and ECW loving times i didn't rate Sabu too much. He didn't even have the personality to match the supposed persona of being insane.

[Devon Malcolm]

Sabu was definitely an over-achiever, anyway. I've become amazed all over again how he was getting world title shots against John Cena.

[Truth]

It depends on what you have seen of Sabu and when. Did you watch his stuff "when it happened" or years after it actually happened? He had a special aura, and I witnessed him live twice in the mid-1990s in his hottest period.

 

Looking back he might seem overhyped or overrated, but that could be said about a lot of wrestlers and wrestling. If you watched the build-up to Andre the Giant vs Hulk Hogan and Ricky Steamboat vs Randy Savage at Wrestlemania III, you can really appreciate the greatness about it. For someone who has not seen it before, Ricky Steamboat vs Randy Savage is still good but not as fantastic as it seemed at the time, and you must really have to have followed it at the time to understand how important and great the Hulk Hogan vs Andre the Giant match and build-up really was.

 

When I look at old Harley Race matches, he looks like someone moving in slowmotion. Was he an overachiever? I don't see what was so great about him, but back in the 1970s to the early-1980s, he was THE man and probably the RIGHT man for the job he was doing as NWA World Champion 7-8 times. He can't have been so bad as a choice when the NWA board decided time after time that he was the right person for the job.

 

The same goes for Sabu. In the early-to-mid-1990s when Sabu's hottest period was, he was something else. Maybe he blew some (or lots of) spots, but he blew spots that no one else was crazy enough to do at the time. That's how you build your legend, doing something that is revolutionary and different from everyone else.

 

Have you watched a wrestling match with a table breaking and thought that was cool? Or a commentator table? That's the sort of impact Sabu had. If someone does anything that is different, others will start picking it up. For a wrestler who has had that sort of influence, it is not an overachievement to have had 4-5 matches in WCW and just about a year in WWE.

 

An interesting topic of discussion could be: Of today's stars, who are going to be able to stand the test of time and not be considered as overachievers in 10 years time?