Update:
GCW owner Brett Lauderdale released a statement defending his usage of Sabu at last month’s Spring Break event, saying he would never put someone in the ring who he thought would be a danger to themselves or others.
“Any suggestion that I or “GCW” or Joey Janela “forced” him to do this match, supplied him with substances or somehow caused his death is irresponsible, disingenous, hurtful, and false. It’s upsetting and discouraging to see people so eager to cast judgment without knowledge of the facts,” he wrote.
“I would never knowingly put someone who I believed was a danger to themselves or others in the ring and my track record shows this to be true,” he continued. “I have pulled people – in a public and painful manner – from big matches before, sometimes literal moments before a match was to begin and would do it again if I had to.
I spoke to Sabu moments before the match and he was Sabu. He was the same Sabu I had encountered in years past when I participated in his matches as a referee and later as a promoter. He was the same Sabu I met with the following day at WrestleCon, and the same Sabu that made multiple appearances on podcasts and at conventions in the weeks that followed.”
Original story:
Joey Janela is defending his match against Sabu despite it almost not happening due to Sabu’s condition.
In an interview with Yahoo Sports, Janela recounted that he almost didn’t wrestle Sabu in his no-rope barbed wire retirement match back on April 18 as Sabu wasn’t able to walk.
“What do you mean Sabu can’t walk? They said, ‘Yeah, Sabu, something with his knee — they’re locked up. He can’t walk. And his feet are bleeding. He’s not coming. Sabu’s not coming.’,” Janela recalled. “I said, ‘Sabu’s f***ed.’ So we talked to [indie wrestler] Matt Tremont, and Tremont is about to be the replacement for the match. And I feel like this is going to be the most embarrassing moment of my wrestling career. There’s 2,000 people here. This is one of the biggest Spring Breaks ever. The biggest crowd ‘Mania weekend, indie-wise. And I’m going to have to go out there and announce that Sabu, once again, no-showed. And no-showed his own retirement match.”
Janela said that Sabu’s team gave him a legal opiate called kratom that was able to get him to the show. The match proceeded as advertised with Sabu defeating Janela in a bloody, brutal match.
“We are an hour into the show and I said, ‘Just get Sabu here,’” Janela continued. “So they gave him something called kratom. You can buy it at a smoke shop or something; it’s like a legal opiate or something. They said, ‘He’s hopping on the bed, he’s hopping off the bed, and we’re going to get him to the show.’ So he shows up two hours into the show. Sabu was on a different f***ing planet. Everyone in the backstage was like, ‘What the f***? Is this match going to happen?’ And my God, did it happen.”
Responding to criticism on social media following the article’s release, Janela reiterated that Sabu’s team gave him the drug, not GCW, and he did his best to take care of him during the match, despite spots where Sabu slipped and fell out of the ring while running into the barbed wire.
“We didn’t give him kratom his team did, it’s also not illegal and 85% of professional wrestlers do it especially the ones on tv,” he wrote. “So f*** you. Sabu was a grown man, he did what he had to do to get out there. I took care of him to the best of my ability, I didn’t think what happened half way through would happen, it was all to get him one great payday and one last shine in the spotlight. That night wasn’t about me, it was about sabu and I wouldn’t change a thing.”
It was announced on Sunday that Sabu had passed away at the age of 60. Tributes across the wrestling world have been pouring out since, including from top companies such as WWE, AEW, TNA, and New Japan Pro Wrestling.
