9 Times ECW Was Better Than Literally EVERYTHING
2. The First Time You Saw Sabu...
...because there's a decent chance that was in Extreme Championship Wrestling.
When Terry Brunk passed away in 2025, a lot of tributes followed down the same path - the moment fans caught glimpse of Sabu via grainy video or still image, they could scarcely believe they were looking at a pro wrestler, or pro wrestling. From being carted, Hannibal Lecter-esque, to the ring strapped down and gagged for the health and safety of himself and others, to crashing through tables with or without opponents on them, to gluing his violent gashes back together midway through a barbed wire massacre, there was no version of 1990s Sabu that wasn't designed to shock, intrigue and amaze.
It's not as though the matches were really about psychology during his best years, but his contests were so deranged and edgy in tone that derivatives like "spotfest" and "plunder war" came to be the psychology. He was insane, he was going to use the lack of rules and boundaries to his advantage, and if he saw weapons or situational props on his travels, you were getting battered with or because of them.
He was nicknamed 'suicidal, homicidal, genocidal' in a bit of good-for-the-time promotional bluster, but it transpired to be not the least bit hyperbolic. "The Feeling" is thrown around now as a shorthand for a specific emotional bond to something in wrestling, but Sabu in ECW was it before we had the language to fully articulate the fact.