Eris

Sports entertainer, my eye. In Extreme Championship Wrestling, them there are fighting words. Sabu is a professional wrestler, damnit!

Humor me, please. How can I not single out he who has deliberately canonized as being homicidal, suicidal and genocidal? With every trip to the ring, Sabu’s body is tossed with all the care of a dysfunctional boomerang. Bones are shifted, muscles stretched and joints jolted in positions the medical community defines as nothing close to prepare fitness.

There wasn’t much convincing needed for Sabu, the nephew of The Sheik, to follow in the family line of work. For nearly 40 years in the “business” (not sports entertainment), The Sheik stuck to the code of training and performing around the globe as an athlete.

[The Sheik digs into a bloodied Abdullah the Butcher.]

As with The Sheik, being Sabu remains a 24-7 occupation. Did anyone ever hear The Sheik break kayfabe during an interview? Absolutely not. After all, he was The Sheik of Arabia, for goodness sake. And Sabu talking before the cameras - it ain’t gonna happen. Anyone who busts himself up as physically as Sabu has over the last dozen years deserves respect, not pity.

Being spoken of as a wrestler with the connotation as an athlete first - and not entertainer - is at the bare minimum downright respectful. Labeling on the package of Sabu is vital. A few weeks back, I telephoned Sabu as he and his wife were cooking dinner and requested a rundown of potential workman compensation injuries he’s registered.

With one deep breath Sabu began shooting from the hip (I’m not sure if it was his good one or not).

“Let’s see now, I’ve torn up both knees, cracked my tailbone, twice I’ve broken vertebrae in my neck, both shoulders have been dislocated and one of them still slips out of place regularly, and both rotator cuffs are messed up,” Sabu said.

Sabu admits to attending a single chiropractic appointment. While working in constant pain for the Superstore of hardcore promotions, he tags torpedoing himself through tables as the most dangerous of all moves in his repertoire. He finds solace in being his own one-man trainer’s squad and is proud to proclaim having been on ECW’s disabled list only one or two days during his on-again off-again tenure with the company since 1993.

“My jaw’s been broken four times,” he said. “The first time I took care of it with tape. The second time, I had surgery. Since then, when it slips out of alignment, I just tape my jaw up.”

As for his torn flesh, there’s been nothing a tube of crazy glue and old-fashioned applying pressure close to the wound can’t fix. Take that, throw in occasional limps and a tooth or two beings point out the hard way, an, well, you have The Sheik’s legacy, ‘90s style.