A look into Sabian’s mindset when it came to the box character.
For a period of time on AEW programming, Kip Sabian was seated in the front of shows and wore a box over his head. During his appearance on Cultaholic’s Desert Island Graps, he deep dove into his mindset and thought process when it came to shaping the character he was trying to present.
Sabian said he wanted to explore the dark side of the character. He guesses it was a victim of timing and did not fit into creative plans after a certain point. He spoke about building up to it, taking the box off, having his moment and then jumping into the next thing as if the box character did not happen.
He revealed that he lost the actual box and that was the point when he decided it was time to transition away from it. Sabian then explained the type of persona he’s experimenting with now.
Yes (I had an endgame for the box character). It’s a tricky one, because with wrestling, things are ever changing and you know, the thing I love about AEW is the fact that we do have someone who is willing to hear ideas, take ideas, merge ideas, whatever it is that’s willing for us to come with our own stuff. Unfortunately, I guess it was a victim of timing or whatever else was going on. But, when we finally did the jump with PAC which was the first time I came back which was one of my favorites things that I ever did. I felt very creative at that point. We had one of the extras backstage wearing the box. I gave him a black eye and tape over his mouth that said, ‘Look behind you for the jump.’ It was very Riddler, like now Riddler, the (Robert) Pattinson-Batman Riddler, which I really loved. Unfortunately, after the match with PAC, there was a little bit of a time period where I was not on TV for a little while and I feel like the impact that-that box, the unboxing or whatever you wanna call it could have had kind of dwindled a little bit and there wasn’t any real direction from there that was being pitched or analyzed or whatever it was so, it got lost in the shuffle I guess is the perfect way to describe it and I would have really liked to delve more into the dark side of that character because I was drawing a lot of inspiration from a Riddler, Joker, kind of like Batman villain-esque vibe and then when we kicked back up with one my favorite things I’ve done in AEW entirely which was this stuff with me and Orange (Cassidy), which was so much fun. When it got around, it had been so much time without the mysterious box character, it felt a bit strange to be doing all this build up over the months and months and months, do the return, take the box off, have the moment with the box at the end and then not really do anything for a month or two or however long it was to then randomly just jump back like nothing had happened. So, I kind of kept the character quiet… but the box kind of slowly made its way out of the picture and also, I did lose the box. That box that I had from the entirety of that process where I kept standing at ringside and working my way around into those Halloween-esque shots in the background was the same box. I removed the tape and I velcroed it so I could unpack it and put it in my backpack. So if I was at an airport and someone wanted a picture, I could put the box on. I was very methodical at that point. So I lost the box and then I went, ‘You know what? I think I need to continue to transition,’ because I feel like with wrestling, you’re still always trying to find that thing, you know what I mean? You’re trying to find your ultimate self and I feel like me right now is getting to that point where I’m combining everything that I’ve had from the independent Superbad character to the Superbad that was around at the start of AEW to the box character to then now transitioning into this culmination of — there’s still a dark side to me and there’s still that dark side of, I’m gonna bite your nose off kind of situation. But, I’m definitely leaning more into the sex idol, rock and roll, Billy Idol-esque, The Lost Boys, Kiefer Sutherland kind of vibe now and I’m having a lot of fun with it. It’s just one of those unfortunate cases where creative-wise, it just didn’t fit into the plans and off it went but it’s a wonderful memory and it definitely helped me get a lot of really good fan interaction.
He looked back at the program he had with Miro. Sabian remembers when Miro ‘broke his arm’ so he could be written off TV to undergo surgery.
He said after that happened, it was never mentioned again and Sabian took offense to that. He went on to say he believes Tony Khan appreciates him for being a good soldier. Sabian tries to make the best of every situation and cited his managerial role with Penelope Ford as an example. Sabian was hurt at that point in his AEW run.
We did the angle with Miro where he broke my arm or whatever we were doing at that point and then literally the week later, it was never mentioned again. So on a personal level, I took it as an insult, you know? Because as a wrestler, even though you appreciate everything that’s going on the show, you, yourself are your job, which it’s a weird career because it’s not you’re given a job like a role in a movie where you know exactly what your position is in this movie. As a wrestler, we are constantly trying to develop our own job itself to then do what job is needed, and thankfully, I think Tony (Khan) understands and appreciates that I am a very good soldier in the fact that I will do whatever job is needed of me and when I’m given that job, I will do my best to make it the best situation that I can do. Whether it was, you know, when I was hurt and I was managing Olivia (Penelope Ford), I was 100 percent behind, okay, if we wanna get over how badass some of these girls are, which they are anyway, but if we really wanna get that, why can’t I go in there as the manager? Why can’t I take the bumps in this scenario? So (Hikaru) Shida beat me up a bunch of times. Situations like that where it added to the story for them and it made it look even more aggressive from that point if that makes sense. But that’s my job. My job is whatever I am asked to do and I’ll do it to the best ability so thankfully with Tony understanding that, he understood the vision that I had at least while I was away to make sure I was giving the fans something else because that’s his main goal. His main goal is to give the fans something that he feels like they want. He’s very passionate about our fan base and our fans, so when I said it as, ‘I can give the fans something outside of the show that when they’re at the show, they have this extra experience at an AEW event that they only get if they come to the AEW event,’ he was 100 percent behind it and basically gave me free rein within a certain parameter to just do whatever I wanted to do.
Sabian signed a new contract with AEW over the summer. He spoke about reaching a new deal with the company and to read his comments, head over to this link.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Cultaholic’s Desert Island Graps with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
