Sabu Passes Away

It would not be hyperbole to state that yesterday - when I read that Sabu had passed away - a part of my childhood died. 

To tell this story properly, you'll have to travel back to 1994 with me.

Back then, I would religiously buy every wrestling magazine I could find. Every now and again, I would read articles about Eastern Championship Wrestling out of Philadelphia and the wild wrestler - Sabu - who wrestled there.

Somewhere during the early summer of '94, I became aware of a wrestling magazine published in Britain named Superstars of Wrestling. It was - at that time - about to rebrand as PowerSlam. I bought the first issue of PS and have never looked back.

That magazine was unlike most of the other publications I had read before because it didn't adhere to kayfabe. It was a breath of fresh air to come across PS especially as it came along a little over a year after the passing of another shoot magazine I loved - Wrestling Eye.

Anyway, PowerSlam opened the world of wrestling up to me more than ever. I was able to learn of the underground tape trading and fanzine scene here in the UK. 

It also allowed me to see the existence of other promotions both here, in the US and Japan. One of the most featured wrestlers in those magazines was Sabu.

The next step, in my travels around underground wrestling fan culture, was to seek out wrestling videos from tape traders who advertised in the latter pages of PowerSlam. 

I'd fire off SAEs to those people and they'd send back printed out sheets of paper with lists of video cassettes they had for sale. I vividly recall making my first choice and then noticed a message on the sheet saying the person would be away on holiday until sometime in September, so I had to wait to send off my paper-round money to buy...

THE BEST OF SABU VOLUME 1!

You would have already known that was the first tape if you had read the short post I wrote about Hunter Q Robbins III when he passed away earlier this year.

To be frank, the tape was very grainy due to the fact it was likely a copy of a copy of a copy. Still, it was my gateway to following wrestling from other promotions on videotape rather than through publications.

The first clip on the tape had Sabu wrestling in FMW. In the short segment, I witnessed Sabu perform some crazy moves. He rounded it off by moonsaulting a table.

It was the first time I had ever seen tables used as props in pro wrestling. Nowadays, it's the norm.

Here are a couple of photographs from the match of note. I purposely chose these images because they're grainy and represent what it was like following Sabu through pirated tapes back in the day.

I fondly remember that 1994 to 1996 period following wrestling through PowerSlam, fanzines and tapes. 

It truly was a wonderful time to be a fan and explore other horizons beyond the WWF and WCW. Sabu was a major piece of that history. Not just for my wrestling fandom, but for the entire genre of professional wrestling.