Sabu Says He’s Not Retired Yet Despite Hip Surgery

– Sabu spoke with SI for a new interview. Some highlights are below:

On not being retired despite recovering from hip surgery: “I have to continue wrestling. I’m not done yet. I don’t know when I’ll be done, but I just know that I’m not. I’m doing good. I had hip replacement surgery, but I need shoulder replacement surgery and my lower back needs fixing. Those are actually more painful, but not more painful when I wrestle, so I can live with it. My hip was the most painful when I wrestled, so I got my hip fixed.”

On having a GoFundMe set up for him to help with his post-operation needs: “I’d rather not talk about my health. I’m not looking for no handouts, though I do appreciate the ones who have given.”

On never breaking character in the ring: “I took a lot of pride in that. I was a little better [at separating myself from the character from The Sheik]. He was The Sheik 24 hours a day. In the beginning, The Sheik tried to make me not resemble him. Not copy him, not imitate him, so I didn’t. If I tried, from day one, to carbon copy The Sheik, it would have looked silly. In later years, I imitated him in my own way. I wanted to be an original Sabu instead of another Sheik. I took The Sheik to another level.”

On not speaking in the ring making it harder to connect with fans: “Some guys have the gift to sell out. I don’t have the gift to sell out. I didn’t make my money talking in the ring, I made my money wrestling.”

On who he likes to watch: “Ricochet is awesome. That one dude, Finn Balor, is great, and that Neville is too good. I like to portray what I like to watch. I don’t do something that I think is boring. If I’m in a match and I have a guy in an arm bar, and I think, ‘If I was in the front row, would I think this was boring?’ If I thought it was boring, I’d get the hell out of there. I could not see having people pay me for me to bore them, even if it was for one second.”

On his short WWE run: “I had a little regret over [not going to WWE sooner], but I’m happy where I’m at now. There’s a few things I wish I would have done differently, but for the most part, I did things my way. I achieved some things that were told to me to be unachievable.”

On his feud with John Cena: “I got a lot of flack before I wrestled Cena, but no flack afterward because he was good. A lot of guys mock him, but he’s a good worker…He probably could be ‘King of the Death Match’ if he wanted, but why would he? Why would he want to wrestle for a hundred dollars when he can wrestle for hundreds of thousands or millions? The highest paid ‘King of the Death Match’ was when I was offered $5,000. John Cena’s lowest match isn’t even five grand, so why would he wrestle in a ‘King of the Death Match’?”