Hall of Famer Rob Van Dam has opened up on the recent false facts presented on Sabu by WWE.
Earlier this week, ECW legend Sabu passed away. Soon, the wrestling world went into mourning. Several stars paid their tribute to the late great star, while a GoFundMe campaign was also launched to help arrange for his funeral expenses.
Almost a week since the unfortunate news, his friend and ECW colleague, Rob Van Dam, recently addressed Terry Brunk’s passing away on his “1 Of A Kind” podcast. However, while reflecting on the incident, RVD pointed out a few mistakes WWE made during their Raw tribute to the ECW veteran.
“I wanted to say thank you WWE for opening up ‘Monday Night Raw’ with the image and mention of Sabu. That was great. What I got to tell ya is that everyone is getting all the facts wrong, and it’s just repeated out there, and everyone has picked it up. They had Sabu’s name, a picture of Sabu, his birth date, and where he was born. The only thing they got right about that was Sabu in the picture.”
He further pointed out the mistakes made in the video package:
“First off, his name wasn’t Terrence…Sabu’s name is Terry. He wasn’t born in New York. He was born in Michigan…And this is the one that everybody prints. Everybody knows that Sabu died at the age of 60, right? No, he made it to 61…Sabu’s birthday was December 12, 1963.”
H/t Wrestlinginc
Former WWE Star Chris Jericho Has Recalled His Last Conversation With Sabu
Recently, during an appearance on 101 WRIF, former World Champion Chris Jericho shared his thoughts on the unfortunate news of Sabu’s untimely death.
Of course I knew Sabu. Yeah. Worked with him when I was in ECW. We had one match in 1996 and I think it was my second — last match I had there. But, Paul Heyman sold that match for 10 years afterwards. It was back when tape trading was a thing. He’d still always advertise that match on his TV shows for years and years and years afterwards and then actually, I just had Sabu work with us in AEW a couple years ago and I always talked with him a lot on Instagram on DMs.
He DM’d me, text me, when we were in Las Vegas at the beginning of this FOZZY tour and he said, ‘Are you guys playing tonight?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, we’re at the Count’s Vamp’d’ or whatever the venue’s called. Didn’t hear anything else and then when I got off stage, he had text me at like 9 o’clock or so. We usually go at 9:30. ‘Can you put me on the list?’ I never saw it because I was getting ready for the gig. Then, I find out, ‘Oh yeah, Sabu was here.’ I was like, ‘What?’ ‘Yeah, he was here.’ Like, really?
He didn’t come and say hi or anything so, and he never mentioned it. I talked to him afterwards, just up until about two weeks ago. We had a quick conversation, and he never mentioned he was at the show so, a very Sabu-esque thing to do but, it’s a true shame. What a pioneer in the wrestling business in so many different ways. So important and so legendary. A true legend and a true character in the business for sure.
“He was an enigma. I think a lot of that was by design, but also a very good-hearted guy. Very great sense of humor. Detroit guy. He came from Detroit. I think he grew up here. But yeah, a very strange guy until you get to know him and then he was just a very — like I said, a very good-hearted, good dude so, I’m glad that I had reconnected with him. I brought him on the Jericho Cruise a few years ago.
So yeah, I hadn’t seen him for a while. But then over the last few years, we had reestablished a relationship so I’m glad that we did because, like I said, he’ll be missed in the business for sure, and as a person… Only one (match with Sabu). Yeah, one match is all we ever had and like I said, it was kind of, you know, a tape trading classic at the time when that was still a thing back in the 90s.”
In other news: Tiffany Stratton’s unbroken record was finally broken on the recent SmackDown episode.