10 Times Wrestling Companies Had To Apologise To Fans

10. ECW Has To Cover For Sabu's No-Show

Back during the heyday of ECW, Paul Heyman was never afraid to shoot from the hip, cowboy.

At the time of April 1995's Three Way Dance event, Heyman was the ECW booker and was mere weeks away from buying out Tod Gordon to become the owner of the Land of Extreme. And in his position of power, Paul E. didn't take too kindly to being shunted by Sabu.

The very name of this show was built around its main event, where ECW Tag Team Champions Dean Malenko and Chris Benoit were to defend the gold against the tandems of Public Enemy and Taz and Sabu. Causing all kinds of headaches for Heyman and ECW, Sabu no-showed Three Way Dance in order to take a bigger payday working for New Japan Pro Wrestling.

When it comes to promised ECW paydays, one could maybe understand why Sabu would opt to take the far more secure money of NJPW. The main problem here, though, is that the Arabian Machine of Destruction informed Heyman only days prior that he would definitely be at Three Way Dance.

After Sabu no-showed, Heyman went to the ring before the event started, broke down the reality of the situation, apologised to the 1,150 fans in the ECW Arena, publicly fired Sabu and promised a surprise replacement that would turn out to be Rick Steiner.

Authored by Andrew Pollard

Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks/Saints, Jamie Hayter, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.

First Posted On: 11th Mar 2021

In this post:

Vince McMahon AEW Tony Khan