Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Sabu on working for Paul Heyman, his favorite ECW matches, why ECW in WWE didn't work

Episode Date: March 5, 2021

Sabu and Super Genie Melissa Coates talk to Chris Van Vliet from their home in Las Vegas, NV. Sabu talks about his time in ECW, what he learned from working with Paul Heyman, how he got his infamous scars, his regrets not signing a $400,000 a year deal with Kevin Sullivan in WCW, his biography called "Sabu: Scars, Silence and Superglue", his children's book "Sabu vs. The Three Little Pigs" and more! He also discusses the lifesaving surgery that Super Genie had that causes her left leg to be amputated at the knee due to blood clots.  Here is a link to the GoFundMe page set up for Super Genie:https://www.gofundme.com/f/medical-costs-for-quotsuper-geniequot-melissa-coates  If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests.  For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to https://chrisvanvliet.com  Follow CVV on social media:  Instagram:instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter:twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook:facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube:youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, y'all? It's Druski, and I've teamed up with Mountain Dew to produce a hilarious new basketball podcast called The Do Zone with Drusky. Learn the backstories of your favorite ballers and celebrities like Jamal Murray. Did you have like a favorite team? Was it the Raptors at the time or no? Was the Raptors even started around that time? Come on, bro. I ain't that old, Felt.

You're talking like I was 50. Taylor, Rokes, Asian Wilson, and many more. You won't want to miss this. Listen to the DoZone with Drusky on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and wherever you listen to podcasts. We go. Welcome to the show. We have a legend with us today. If it's your first time listening, good to have you with us.

I'm Chris Van Fleet. I'm an Emmy Award-winning TV host, and I'm fascinated with finding out how people are wired to achieve greatness. Because it doesn't happen by accident. On each episode of Insight, we have in-depth conversations and reverse engineer the habits and techniques of the world's top. Athletes, actors, entrepreneurs, hardcore legends, you name it. If they're the best of what they do, I want to get their insights. insight so we can apply it to our own life. And it is impossible to talk about ECW without talking about Sabu. He's one of the stars who made that company. What a fascinating guy. And you can read all about

his life in his biography called Saboo, Scars, Silence, and Superglue. He also has a children's book out called Sabu versus the Three Little Pigs. You can find both those books on his website, ECW Saboo.com. And he's joined in this interview by Super Jeannie, Melissa Coates, who recently had her left leg amputated in a life-saving surgery that was caused by blood clots. I'll let her tell you more about this, but there's a GoFundMe page set up to help cover those medical expenses.

It's linked in the show description, so if you can, please help Melissa and Sabu out. Take a screenshot, share this with someone who's a huge ECW fan, and tag us so we can share it. I'm at Chris Van Fleet. Saboo is at the real Saboo ECW. Super Genie is at Real Supergeny.

And if you haven't yet, hit subscribe or hit follow on whatever platform it is that you're listening on right now. This review is from Danielle 325 who says, awesome show. Chris is one of the most down-to-earth genuine interviewers out there. His energy puts his guests at ease to open up and have an in-depth conversation that flows effortlessly whilst the listener gets an insight into his guests and their lives. Not your typical questions. Well, thank you so much, Danielle. Appreciate that.

And I will continue reading one review on every single episode. Let's get to that goal of 2,000 reviews. Before my birthday, you know, Cain's least favorite day, May 19th. We're at 1736 right now. So closing in on 2000, just a little, what was that, 264 to go. Vag goals get vague. results, right? Mm-hmm.

My guest today is a wrestling legend. Please welcome, Sabu and Super Jeannie. All right. I'm joined by Sabu and Super Jeannie. How are you guys? Pretty good. It's been better. And you know, Super Jeannie had a misapp with her leg.

Yeah. Super Jeannie, how are you feeling? Well, you know, I'm hanging in there. It's definitely a very large change. The doctors actually don't even know what happened that caused me to lose my leg. I've been to all these specialists for all these different tests, like 13 vials of blood. They don't really know what happened. So it's been a shocker.

You know, I've made my entire career off pro-bodybuilding, pro wrestling, and then suddenly to have, you know, your leg amputated above your knee has been quite the unexpected shock. Sure. We have a GoFundee gone for her also. Yeah, I'll put a link down below for the GoFundee. me but yeah it looks like it's been getting some pretty good momentum momentum i mean obviously the fans care about both of you guys yeah yeah i'm very happy about that yeah it's the thing is a prosthetic leg you know besides all the procedures i had to have like five six procedures in the hospital a really

good prosthetic leg you're not just given these things like they're if you want a really good one it's super expensive like a hundred thousand dollars if i wanted a leg that brought me to where I was, say, bodybuilding-wise or wrestling-wise of the ring, I can't just have a basic leg. You have to buy a leg that's like $100,000. So once I heard that, it was a pretty big shock. Right. So, like, did this just start with pain in your leg? Is that where this began?

And then after about a couple weeks, we took her to the hospital. They said she might have had to pull Achilles. three weeks later she had pain your cat again through that three weeks we finally took the hospital and they said it was dying or late was dying oh my gosh yeah it felt like a long story short it was seemed like a was a um seemed like a pole muscle

but I have in the family there's a lot of like vein problems clots artery issues heart problems and um you know so I started to have pain in my leg about six weeks before the amputation and I went you know I did what I should have done. I went to urgent care. And unfortunately, the doctor didn't check my arteries. He only checked the vein. So it wasn't a, it wasn't like a full exam.

And then, you know, weeks later, I'm back in the hospital. And they're telling me they're most likely going to have to amputate my leg. So it was just awful. But anyway, why are we here? Well, it's good to have you guys on. And what's this shirt that you have on, Sabu? It's Judas Trace. Oh, this is amazing. I usually wear my RVD, CBD shirt, but I don't have it on today. But if you order RVD, CVD, and you put the promo code Sabu, you're 10% off. All right.

Well, and congratulations, Sabu in your book. I mean, stars, silence, and super glue. People can find it on your website. But this is, it's a pretty in-depth look at the person that you are. it's a little it's a little um softened up here and there sabbub actually he'll end up doing another book that's a little more chew to his character but uh we thought we had uh he thought he'd go easy on the fans to start off and and um give them something a little less shocking sabbby when someone when someone's pretty wild so yeah you've lived a wild life like

in wrestling and outside of wrestling like it's for Everything that fans have seen you do in the ring, it's also mind-blowing to me that you were shot in the face and survived that. Yep. Yeah, right here. Right there. Not my teeth out from the side there. My gosh.

And I was a little cavity and a couple holes in the back of my throat. And he was actually trying to defend a friend of his, how this all happened. He was in kind of a rough part of Lansing, Michigan, where he grew up. And was a big party one night and turned into not such a great party. by the end of the night. Wow. Did you think at any point during that, Sabu, that you weren't going to make it?

Oh, I, well, when I first got shot, you know, my throat was drying all that, so I was choking on my blood. But then after I got my bearings back outside. Hmm. When we look at everything that you've done in the ring, what's been the most painful thing that you've gone through?

The time Benwaffe threw me on my head. Nope my neck That was pretty bad Yeah, I'd say that'd be pretty bad The second one would be the scar on my arm I got when I got to Terry Funk Man Yeah, you would have thought all the barbed wire matches

Would have been the worst But I guess I guess landing on your head And breaking your neck is a close second To having your torso ripped open by barbed wire Yeah Yeah, well, and I guess with everything That you have been through What hurts on you as you sit here right now

And we have this conversation? My lower back, my shoulder really bad, and my neck. Oh, my God. Yeah, his lower back is particularly bad right now. I got spinal sinosis in my lower back. When we look at the, like, you're like famous, infamous for the scars on your chest and your stomach on your torso. Did all those happen in one match? No, it happened over a course of time.

you know there wasn't one match with a month pretty few matches yeah you're thinking of the wrestler movie where that guy had everything happen all at once no no his injuries spread over over time it's like it's also become like it's become your trademark too though yeah i guess so yeah i think anything having to do with barbed wire like i think people specifically think of saboo when it comes to barbed wire so that's kind of his uh to me that's his calling card that's That's his pattern in itself is barbed wire. Right. I think when people think of barbed wire in a wrestling ring,

I think there's a lot of fans out there who think that this is not real barbed wire, but it is real barbed wire. It's definitely real barbed wire. In his case, it always was, yeah. Yeah, it's definitely real barbed wire. So when you sign up, Sabu, for your first barbed wire match, what's going through your mind? Well, I didn't sign up for it.

I was a tour of Japan, and it just will happen. a barbed warrior match. I didn't know about it until the last minute. So I didn't take that much about it. And I took it in stride. It was just another day and I'll try it hard like it do any other time and hopefully they like it. And the thing was, I tried so hard that I was good at it that they thought that I liked doing it. But I didn't like doing it. I was just doing what was faced in front of me. And was that your first exposure to like that real type of hardcore match? Yeah. The first time I've never been in the barbed war match, yes. Oh my gosh.

Yeah, FMW. And then it became something that you were really known for. Is it just because you were good at it? The first time I did a barbed war match was one. And then the next tour, we did like three. Then the third tour, we did 16 barbwere matches. So it just kept accumulating the next tour kept on more and more. And finally, every day of the tour was a barbore match.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, that's him. Yeah, right. And you were okay with her? Well, I dished about it, but I still do my best. Sure. I would say, why am I in barbed wire every night? Because you like it.

I know I don't. So it's just because you complained the least. Is that why? I guess so. What would you say that you like more? Barbed wire or steel chairs? What time again? Barbed wire or steel chairs.

Steel chairs. Yeah, steel chairs became like a huge part of your offense. Where did that begin for you? Well, my uncle used a chair every now and then. And then F&W would save me for killing some chairs. So I just wanted to use a chair a different way, so I jump off it or throw it or kick it or whatever, something different than you're squacking the guy with a head with it.

Yeah, when your uncle is the sheik, and you're growing up with the uncle as your sheik, or as the sheik, is it like pretty, you know, it's pretty predetermined that you're going to become a pro wrestler at that point? Yeah, I guess so. But I'm the only one in my family. Like I had a cousin who wrestled for a couple years. He quit.

Another cousin wrestled for a couple of years, he got killed. But nobody really stuck with it. I was only relative that stuck with it. Huh. Was there a point where you weren't going to stick with it? No, never. Never. I started amateur wrestling in eighth grade.

And I was only doing that to gear me up for pro wrestling. So I'm going to 10th grade, 11th grade, 12th grade. That was just warm up to get me tough sort of pro wrestling. I didn't care how he did. It was his practice. And his uncle actually knew Sabby was always going to end up being a pro wrestler because of... Because when I'd go out to his house when I was young, I just stare at him. And he kind of was scared, but I wasn't scared.

But I was scared. I didn't show him. He just mesmerized by him, right? So somehow his uncle sort of picked up that this is going to be the next sheet. I studied his familyism. I studied everything about him. Yeah. Were you always as athletic as we've,

seen you in the ring like you know pulling off moon salts out of nowhere like it's like you really were super athletic my uncle used to be pretty athletic too when he was younger way younger but and he also said when you do that shit tonight you got to do it every night if they like it so that's a curse and a blessing you know it's a curse that you got to do it every night and a blessing that people want to see you but uh you know I just took it in stride I didn't care how bad I got beat up or long as I made it through the day I was fine well believe it or not savvy is actually extremely clumsy. Like if you're going to have a dinner table,

who's going to knock over the glass of milk, it's going to be Saboo. So it's amazing to me, like how smoothie is in the ring, and yet it's funny how sometimes he's clumsy in real life. Like, two people would never put the two together. You know why I'm clumsy? Because I try to be too careful.

Yeah, I guess. Yeah, that's true. You're holding yourself back. And you're saying in the ring, you don't try to be too careful? No, not at all. I try to be rough. tough as I can.

So if it's a blessed. That looks very real. You know, like I always thought Sabu would be a great crossover with UFC because you're never going to look at Sabu stuff and go, this stuff isn't real. Like how some people try to act like pro wrestling is fake. You're never going to look at Sabu stuff and say, hey, they practice this a million times. This stuff is fake because his stuff isn't fake. He thinks on his feet and he's just trained like a pure wrestler.

Most people nowadays are not trained like that at all. Well, I remember seeing Sabu for the first time in ECW, and I thought, this guy might legitimately be crazy. You're probably right. I mean, it was just something about your demeanor, but also just the way that you worked matches. It was just like it looked like you were genuinely out there to, like, kick some ass. Well, the thing that people believed was when I didn't talk, because every other wrestler talked shit and does that loud promo. And I didn't say nothing and I still connected with people. I didn't say a word and I connected with people.

Was that a benefit for you to not cut promos? It's a benefit to me, as long as I had a manager with me. But if I didn't have a manager, you know, I didn't have no rebuttal. Yeah. And whose idea was it to come up with the gimmick that you have now and, you know, that's made you famous your entire career? My uncle did. He named Sabu the Elephant Boy from Bombay, India.

Because his hero, when he was growing up was Saboo the App who played Mowgli in the movie Jungle Book. So he always wanted to be that guy, that Sabaabu in there. So he used to run around his house with a towel on his head when he was a little kid. And then when he got old enough, when he had a first baby, the first son, he wanted to name a Sabu, but his wife, my aunt would let him. So they named the dog Sabu. I'm actually the second Sambu.

And I dropped the hell from him. So how long until people figured out that you weren't actually from India? Now they created, you know, it was Bombay, Michigan is where you were from. They still thought I was. So I changed it to Bombay, Michigan. But the elephant boy is considered a really tough person, though, right? An elephant boy is like a cowboy. They hurt elephants.

It sounds funny here, but in India, I have a lot of respect. Hmm. So an elephant boy is a real badass. They're not part of the world. So it sounds funny elephant boy, but it actually means he was incredibly tough. from that part of the world they would understand, you know? Right.

I mean, growing up, looking up to your uncle, looking up to the sheik, did you assume that when you got into wrestling, you'd have a gimmick that would be kind of similar to his? He set me straight. My first five years, I was a regular wrestler who didn't leave the ring and only did the first

10-minute matches in the first match of the show. And from day one, he goes, you're not going to be like me. I said, okay. He goes, no, don't give me that shit. You're not going to be like me. I said, okay.

I didn't, not that I didn't want to, I just knew there was already him. I didn't want to copy him. So it just, when I had the, when I said with that old boy, I used to have a turban in India. But after when everybody found out, I was his nephew, he said, lose the turban and where a piece like his. Hmm. A couple of inches taller than you.

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is 10% off your first month. Just go to BetterHelp.com slash insight. That's BetterHelphelp.com slash insight. Do you feel like this, that you'd be able to, If you started this gimmick now in 2021, do you think that they let you get away with this now? No.

Everything is too choreographed and scripted. Now, most of my shit, especially in FMW, came on the fly. Because a good worker used to be considered how good he reacted on his seat, not how he could read a script. Yeah. I mean, when you look at your... Change to where you got to read a script. Right.

When you look at your resume, you look at everywhere that you've worked, I mean, you've worked everywhere. Where was your first big break, do you think? Japan. I wrestled for seven years. Five years of Terry S.R. And two years of SABU. And when I went to Japan, I took off from them.

That's seven years later after I started. And, you know, Kevin Sullivan said recently that you missed down on a $400,000 paycheck in WCW. Is there actually fact of that? It was a little more than that, but close enough. It was a three-year deal. He said it was a three-year deal. The downside was $400. One year guaranteed, two years maybe.

So what happened here? They offered me some money. I went down to have a meeting with J.J. Dillon and Kevin Sullivan. They offered me a huge contract, and I was shit in my pants. So I said, let me take this back to my hotel and read it. And Kevin goes, read it, just sign it. So I have to read it. But really, I wanted to tell my mother,

before i signed it just for the hell of it but when i called my mother she had a heart attack on the phone before i could tell her so i hung up the phone and flew right home and then i was in intensive care for with my mother and i called him from the ICU unit and uh called kennel solven and said okay i i got that contract i'm a faxability now it goes too late right to be a soon matter of six hours my contract i got lost the contract in six hours yeah unbelievable that's i can't even believe that that's true that's true Why would they take the contract away so quickly? Well, it was with Polly calling up the WCW office and threatening the suit.

That's all it took for them to get away, to drop me. Wow. So then where did you end up going from there? I went to Japan everywhere else, you know, everywhere, and then eventually WWE, you know. Yeah. I just went everywhere else. Do you think that the character that you had would have worked in WCW? Would you have been this massive star that Kevin Sullivan is talking about?

I hope so. I think so, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'd like to think so, too. Well, see, Kevin liked my gimmick. He wasn't, he was going to give me a guy who could talk for me, and even a guy of my choice, a manager of my choice, and a few other bugguries. And I was freaked out so bad. I had to tell my mother first, and it was insane.

Yeah. Well, that means just a heart attack. Well, yeah, that was worse than losing the contract with my mother's heart attack. But that gave her 10 more years of life after that. Wow. Who do you think your manager would have been in WCW? I wanted Tommy Rich. It might have been Fonzie, but I want to tell me rich because we're two opposite, so opposite. So that's, you know, that's the WCW contract. And you know, what happened with the WWF contract a few years before that?

That was only a one-year deal and there wasn't much money. And they said they were going to keep Sabu the way he is, the way he was in the ECW. But when I got there, they took Paul on the booking. After a couple of months, they took Paul Haman on the booking. And I had no one else in the booking meeting and had my back. So one day I said to Dusty Rhodes, I go, why am I getting the shit kicked out of me in the ring? He goes, you don't have no friends in the booking meeting. I said, what?

And I looked at him as if he's one of my friends. And he goes, like I said, you have no friends in the booking meeting and walked away. That's pretty harsh. Yeah, pretty harsh. So if you don't have somebody, you got to kiss somebody's ass and agent's ass, for them to bring your name up in the booking meeting they go we need somebody to do this they're hey how about somebody i know you know but uh yeah there's not to do that it's three in the wayside yeah would you say that was a how good you are was that a similar situation to when you worked

in wwee later on just you know no friends in the booking room to help you out first time the first time work for w e the try out okay that i just came in for a couple days and that was a try out I didn't want us to take it. Then later on, when they called me to do the ECW, WWE, that's when they said, we're going to keep Sabu the same and all this stuff. And then after I got there, it slowly changed. And then once Paul was out of it, it all changed. Yeah.

What would you say was the biggest difference between Sabu and ECW and then Sabu and WWE's version of ECW? They said they wanted the WW version. But when I got there, I mean, the ECW version, when I got there, did they want to make it a new version? So softening me down. I already toned myself down and never toned me down more. back here, talking you down. In what ways do you feel like they really toned you down the most?

Well, they'll say, if I jump off the chair and do a kick, they go, you can't do that. I go, why? He goes, that's Jeff Hardy's spot. That's a shit. I go, I'm going to break a table leg. No, no, no. Elijah Burns doesn't break a table. I go, but it's my gimmick.

I hear it is. As they said, anything I said I invented, you didn't invent it here. Yeah. And, I mean, you weren't able to use the chairs as much as a weapon like you were able to in the first couple months for a few weeks. I did use like I always did and they slowly took it everything away. Yeah.

We would do in CW, WWE hardcore extreme matches on the road and there wouldn't be no extreme matches. We wouldn't even break the table or use a chair. Oh, show. What would you say was

like the standout moment for you in your time in ECW? At time, Taz chasing for a year and I ended up. in the ring with lights out lights on facing them i guess that was the biggest moment yeah that's pretty yeah that's pretty good one i don't know what about an impact what do you think is the biggest thing you did in tn a uh i did a barb warrior match in tina called bob warrior massacre 2004 that was

pretty good that was with abyss right yes yeah i i i also think that for a lot of people what stands out in your time in w e is your match with john sina what was it like working with john I liked it. Yeah, I got a lot of bad rep, a lot of bad information given to me about him. It was all lies and jealousy because he could work. He was a nice guy, wasn't selfish, and he even called my spots when I forgot him. Really? Yeah. So the match that we saw was John Cena calling most of that match?

He didn't talk more for the match. Whenever I got lost, he called it. Okay. We both called the match in the dressing room. And then when we go out there, we both called it in the ring. But I go, I forgot. Because I know if you do this, do that. you know, he was always on the right page.

You're obviously in the conversation. A lot of guys have jealous of him because of his big push, but he deserves it. Yeah. But what do you make of what John Cena is doing with his career now? I don't know. What's he doing? He's a movie star now. Yeah.

I guess good for him. And guy co-com commercials. Guy co-cumin. I mean, he hasn't wrestled. Like, well, I guess he kind of did something at Russellmania last year, but it was pre-taped. He hasn't wrestled since then, though. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, so he's basically just following the Rock's footsteps now.

Yeah. That's huge. You're obviously in the conversation, Sabu, for someone who should be in the Hall of Fame. If WWE wanted to induct you in the Hall of Fame, would that be something you're interested in? I said that I wouldn't be because I think it's the biggest Hall of Fame there is, but I would do it for the payoff. I'll make sure everybody knows that I would think I'm a Hall of Fame because they said. I'm supposed to be getting inducted into the Iowa Hall of Fame this year.

That to me is a real Hall of Fame because they put amateur wrestlers. They put pro wrestlers or even boxers sometimes. But it's all about wrestling, not about who sing the national anthem or what celebrity was on the show. Yeah. And, I mean, it makes sense. You're obviously a Hall of Famer. Doesn't it make sense that you go in there? No, because I wasn't a big name in WDW.

WWE. Those are for guys like, Van Dam will be enough for sure because he worked more for WWE than I did. But when I was there, I didn't have a Hall of Fame year or Hall of Fame match when I was there. It was pretty sad. Yeah, I guess it is kind of it's just sad. It's such a huge ECW fan. It's just sad what happened

to ECW. Me and Rob said to Vince, you know, we're losing our fans and he goes, fuck those fans, we'll make new ones. But the new ones are too soft, you know? You want the old base, you know, the original ECW base. Why not? They were bloodthirsty fans.

We bought every show, no matter how bad it was. In a perfect world, what do you think should have happened with ECW when it was going under? I don't know. I jumped shit before it went under, but then that ship fell through when I did it, so I didn't go back. But I don't know if they should be a better backer, a bigger backer or something. I don't know. Yeah. Paul's a genius.

He still is a genius. That's why he's on top of the world today. And he had more stuff back then. He doesn't have the money. Yeah. What do you think is the most impressive thing about Paul Heyman? In Brain, his way he talks, he's a lawyer without going to school. And he's a smartest son bitch out of him not without going to school.

He, uh, one time Vince said, cut a promo for 10 minutes. He was, what do you say? He was, take us something. So he went out there and thank God for Vince McMahon. And all on the fly, all the last second shit coming out of his mouth. Wow. I'm the verbal. Is there a lesson that Paul Heyman taught you from your time that you spent with him

that, you know, has really stuck with you? Yeah, he said, don't ever talk on a promo. So that's not. If he knew I was no good at it, even if I tried it, no good at it. I purposely not try for Vince and Stephanie. What about from Vince? You worked with Vince for a while. What's the biggest takeaway from working with Vince McMahon?

He was always great to my face from what I know. He's always very polite, very respectful. I always spoke good about my uncle. My uncle never spoke good about him, but he always spoke good about my uncle. And he said that I was better than he thought. Better than they said, oh, Vince was amazing. He watches every single match and cares about it.

He even goes over every single match and cares about it. I would say, have someone else's him. I don't feel like doing it, but he always feels like doing it. He's a weird old. He's made amazing. What do you think Vince could have done to make the WWW? version of ECW work better? Keep the WWE guys out of it and let us do our own thing.

But make Paul the boss and let's do our own thing. Yeah. Ignore WWE. We should ignore them. Sorry. How many of those guys you're still in touch with? How many of the original ECW guys? Not that many.

I talk to Dreamer sometimes, Van Dam all the time, Taz a little bit. I talked to Paul Hamer a few weeks ago. Oh. How's Paul Hayman doing? He's doing great. Not better than me. Are you doing okay? I could be better, but I'm all right.

Oh. I ate my meals. You guys both look great. What's that? You guys both look great. Well, thank you. Where are you guys? We just had a doctor's appointment this morning.

We have doctors appointments almost every day. And today we have two. No, yesterday we have two. Wow. Where are you guys living right now? That specialist, has. What's that? Which city are you guys in now?

Vegas. Oh, okay. That's why you see Van Dam all the time. Well, yeah. I was here before him, though. We moved here right before he did. Ah. Well, again, I'll put that link down below for the GoFundMe for you, Gene.

And, you know, but it's great to see you guys doing so well. And without considering, yes, we are doing well, considering what happened to her. Yeah. Saboo, you got a new action figure coming out produced by, zombie sailor can you tell us about that i'm we got a new action figure coming out you know plus my book and i have a coloring book i think i have one right here this is my colory book can you see it savu and versus the three little pigs yeah it's actually a real coloring book somebody said great read it's really cute got a little camel genie on the back

with like roped in these it's really cute it's it's a really cute little story we're going to start marketing. Actually, probably going to start selling them tonight. His website

is ECWsabu.com and what your Twitter is at the real Sabu ECW Instagram is the same? No,

just the real salo ECW, yes. Yeah, the real Sabu ECW. And I sell a lot of his

merchandise through mine, so mine would be like at real super genie, that sort of thing.

I usually put the if anybody wants my merch they'd have to get over her anyways. Okay. What's the best way that people can support you? What's that? What's the best way that people can support you? Best way to support you. Best way to support me? Send me your money.

No, there is no big. Care for me when you see me, I guess. I don't know. You don't have to do nothing. Are you, you still working matches, right? It's coming up. He's got some other business deals coming up. He's going to be doing a Patreon. You know, we got a lot of things planned for him. We just had to get a little more caught up to date with social media, you know, Saboos. I'm behind on that, yeah. I underestimated, I underestimated it. I didn't think that many people paid attention to what I said, what they do. Well, you know, today everybody's got to be politically correct or everybody's going to jump

down your throat. So, you know, it's a very different world nowadays. Like, you know, wrestling originally started with everybody being politically incorrect and that's how it, how it functioned. now, like, you can't be politically incorrect. You get in trouble if you pull any of the kind of storylines that they used to do back in the day. You can't do that anymore.

You know, everybody flips out. Yeah. So you're still working matches, right, Sabu? No. I wrestled in October and I was in so much pain. I had another match coming up in January. I had to cancel it and I had some matches coming up this month. I have to cancel.

I don't know if I'm going to wrestle again, actually, until I get surgery on my back. Wow. So after surgery, you think you'll be able to wrestle then or do not want to wrestle anymore? That's what I plan to. All right. So in a perfect world, who's your final match against? Rob Van Damme. No, no, I'm sorry. That'd be my, Brock Lesnar. Brock Lesnar. And Paul, when I said, I want to wrestle Brock, he knew I was going to say that. Because I said, I had Paul. I told him I want to wrestle. I told him I want to wrestle Brock.

He goes, but Brock's under contract. But I knew you'd say that. Why? He goes, because you're a perfect. opponent. He's my opponent. When I describe Paul to get me somebody with Russell. It might be his final match, too. Brock is pretty much an animal. When you look back at your entire career, Sabu, is there something that maybe you wish you hadn't done or maybe you wish you had done differently? I wish I would have signed that contract and Kevin Selham gave it to me.

That I resent my heart. Do you think about how, I mean, would your career have really been that much different if you'd sign it, you think? I life would have been a lot better. Yeah. Yeah, I guess a couple million dollars would go a long way to me. Yeah. Well, it's still possible now.

Yeah. Not really. I'm too old. No, he's got so many fans. Like, young kids are still as fans. It's amazing. Like, you know, with the internet and YouTube, like, he's got little girls that want to be like him.

And, you know, some of them want to be like me, but a bunch of them are to point out because they want to be like staboo. So it's, you know, the internet is so far reaching, you know, he doesn't even realize how popular he still is. Well, I kind of put Twitter and everything on the back burner thinking it was something secondary, but I didn't realize how strong it is. What was the realization that made you realize? All right, I got to really dive into this.

What made me? Well, everybody around me said, you've got to get on Twitter. You got to get on Facebook. And finally, I got on Twitter and Facebook about. seven years ago, but not before that. But I just got a, like, I had a Twitter for five and six years that's never used it. And when I did use it, I swore and said a few things, but I shouldn't have said, and they gotten suspended.

Now I'm definitely suspended off Twitter. But I had another one. The real Saboo ECW. Well, it's a lesson learned the hard way. Yeah, I guess so. All right. So again, it's ECWSavu.com, right? Yes.

All right. Thank you guys so much. Such a pleasure to be talking to you guys. Thank you. Your RVD, CBD, promo code Sabu. Well, there we go. Thank you to Sabu and thank you to Super Jeannie. The link for the GoFundMe that we were talking about for Super Jeannie is in the show notes.

So if you can, please help out. And thank you for being on this audio adventure with me. Make sure to hit subscribe wherever you're listening. And you can always find the highlights and transcription. for these conversations on my website, chrisfamvleet.com. If you follow me on Twitter, you saw this quote last week that I shared from James Cameron. I love it. So good.

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