In 1995, Sabu began a short stint with WCW that saw him compete on several episodes of NITRO on top of competing at the 1995 Halloween Havoc pay-per-view. Sabu was offered the opportunity to return to the company years later and he talked about that opportunity during his chat with Chris Van Vliet.
As Sabu recounted it, the deal was for $400,000 and he went to meet with J.J. Dillon and Kevin Sullivan who became a booker of WCW in the late 90s. Sabu stated that he did not sign the contract on the spot because he wanted to read over the details along with relaying the news back to his mother. He added that his mother had a heart attack and he immediately flew to where she was residing to be with her. Sabu claims that another factor was Paul Heyman threatening to sue WCW and that is what it took for them to pull the deal.
It was a little more than that [$400,000], but close enough. One-year guaranteed, two years maybe. 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 sh*tting my pants, so I said, ‘Let me take this back to my hotel and read it’ and Kevin says, ‘Read it? Just sign it.’ I said, ‘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 with my mother and I called him from the ICU unit and called Kevin Sullivan and said, ‘Okay, I got that contract. I’m gonna fax it over to you now.’ He goes, ‘Too late, we’re [getting] threatened to be sued.’ I lost the contract in six hours.
Well it was Paul E. [Paul Heyman] calling up the WCW office and threatening to sue. That’s all it took for them to get away, to drop me.
Sabu told Hannibal TV in a separate interview that the $400,000 offer was made to him in either 1999 or 2000. WCW was officially acquired by WWF/E in 2001.
Kevin Sullivan gave his recollection of the Sabu contract offer and confirmed that it was a $400,000+ deal and that he urged Sabu to sign. Sullivan explained to Hannibal TV that three days after the offer, he was told that the deal was being cancelled and they were not going to be using Sabu.
What happened was I had a contract for either $450,[000] or $475,[000] and I said, ‘Sign the contract now. Things are changing here quickly. You need to sign the contract’ and he said, ‘Well, I gotta talk to my wife’ and she was Japanese and I don’t know if she was in Japan at the time or she was in Michigan. He didn’t sign it. J.J. [Dillon], we actually met him in a hotel. J.J. and I both went. J.J. was a big fan of his, I was too. There was a relationship with J.J. and The Sheik, my relationship with The Sheik and three days later, I kept on asking for three days, ‘Where’s his contract? Where’s his contract?’ He’s calling me because I was wanting him to start at NITRO and they said, ‘Oh, we cancelled his contract, we’re not bringing him in’ and that was it. It could’ve changed his life completely because it was for three years.
Sabu last wrestled in October of 2020. He is currently promoting his autobiography ‘Scars, Silence, and Superglue’.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Chris Van Vliet and/or Hannibal TV with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
