Bruce Prichard Recalls Offering Sabu a Spot In 1996 Royal Rumble

On the latest episode of Something To Wrestle With, Bruce Prichard talked about the negotiations to bring Sabu into the WWE for the 1996 Royal Rumble. There were rumors that the ECW star expressed interest in being in the match, with the notion that he would have done a plancha over the top onto a guy through a table, thus eliminating himself. The claim is that Paul Heyman was against the idea because he didn’t want Sabu working someone else’s PPV.

Prichard claims he reached out directly to Sabu to pitch a one-off appearance. You can check out some highlights below:

On the Conversation:

“Well, it’s an interesting story. I contacted Sabu; I contacted Happy [Heyman] first. Told him, ‘I’d like to use Sabu.’  And — yeah, f**k it. So I called Sabu and said, ‘Hey, we’d like to use you in the rumble and what have you.’ And we thought, and not to — I probably did it to protect him for Paul, the spot. And yes, that is spot we had, to have him basically eliminate himself and go out. Because that’s what he did… And that was kind of the pitch. It was like, ‘Alright, we’d love to have you.’ And Sabu says to me, ‘I don’t have a problem with it, but you need to speak to my uncle, The Sheik.’”

On His Reaction To It:

“And I said, ‘Okay. What do I need to talk to him about?’ ‘About if this is good for my career or not.’ ‘Okay? I mean, do you want to talk to your uncle. Or I mean, I don’t know what me talking to your uncle is going to be any different than you talking to your — if you want to do it, then talk to him. Tell him you want to do it and get his advice. If you don’t want to do it, we won’t do it.’ He says, ‘I really appreciate it if you would talk to him, and if you would call him.’ I said, ‘Sure.’

“So I call the number in Detroit. Gentleman answers the phone, ‘Hello?’ I said, ‘Hello, this is Bruce Prichard with WWE. Can I please speak to Ed Farhat?’ And he says, ‘Who’s this??’ ‘Bruce Pritchard, I’m with WWE and we were interested in using Sabu at the Royal Rumble. And I was calling to speak to Mr. Farhat.’ He goes, ‘This is The Sheik!’ ‘Okay. Well Mr. Sheik, I talked to your nephew and explained to him that we’d like to use him in the Royal Rumble, and we’d like to feature him. He’s not going to win. But think we have a unique way to have him eliminate himself, doing the spot that he does with the tables and what have you, and he ends up eliminating himself.’ He says, ‘Yeah, no, it’s not good for him.’”

On the End Of the Call:

“[I said], ‘Well, hey thank you for your time.’ Hangs up. So that’s — I mean, it just ended there. I was like, ‘F**k this.’ It is a pet peeve of mine, it’s a pet peeve of several others in the industry where I do not like to deal with agents or managers, or lawyers. I like to deal with talent. And the reason for that is that when you’re there producing it, and when you are there, actually doing what they’re contracted to do and you’re putting together a show, the agent or the manager, the lawyer or the friend or the mother or the daughter or the uncle or whatever, ain’t there either. And I’m not going to deal with them and negotiate a finish with somebody other than the talent. And so yeah, I was done at that point. I was like, ‘Okay, next.’ I called Sabu back said, ‘Yeah, your uncle doesn’t think it’s good for your career. Give me a call if you ever think this might be good for your career. Bye.’ That was it.”

On If It Was Always Intended To Be a One-Off:

“It was a one-off. But honestly, yeah. I would love to have brought Sabu in at the time. And again, I had never dealt with him. But you know, it’s funny to hear the Heyman side of things. Because look, Paul would tell me how difficult he was to deal with, and what have you. And then, but look, Paul’s got to deal with his talent. Paul had to keep his locker room and his s**t together. And I think Paul was very, rightfully so, protective of what he had there and didn’t want anything to interfere with that and to jeopardize any of that. So it’s like, ‘Okay, cool.’ But at that point, man, I was done with Sabu at that point.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Something To Wrestle With an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.