Chris Jericho Reveals Sabu Wanted His Last Match to End With a Cruise Ship Plunge

Sabu passed away at the age of 60 earlier this year and in the weeks since his passing, the wrestling world has shared tons of stories about the legendary wrestler. In fact, Chris Jericho has now revealed that Sabu reached out to him about doing one more match before his passing.

While speaking on the Talk Is Jericho podcast, Chris Jericho talked about Sabu’s last match at GCW Spring Break 9, where Sabu faced Joey Janela. After the match, Sabu sent Jericho a message asking if he wanted to have a match together in six months.

Jericho said it was the last message he got from Sabu, just a week before he passed away. Even though Sabu had a retirement match, he still wanted to wrestle again. Sabu had also told Rob Van Dam that wrestling him wouldn’t feel right because they were too close.

“But I will say this too, when you mentioned his last match on his terms, I don’t think I’m talking out of school here in saying that I did get a text from him. As a matter of fact, it’s the last text I got about a week before he passed away, saying, ‘Aye, in six months, you wanna have another match? I wanna have another match.’ So I think he had his retirement match, but still wanted to have other matches and I know that Rob (Van Dam) talked about it where Sabu said it’d be cheating to have a match against Rob because they’re so close. I did get an inquiry from Sabu, who was saying he wanted to have another one and that’s a classic, old-school brother wrestling story too.”

Advertising

Advertising

Jericho also shared a funny story about Sabu and the Jericho Cruise. Before the cruise, Sabu messaged Jericho for years saying he wanted to be on it and wrestle him in a match where the loser had to jump off the ship.

Jericho noted that Sabu said he would win the match, but still jump off the ship anyway. When he finally came on the cruise, he did a live podcast and got to reunite with his old friend Luther from FMW. Jericho said Sabu was great on the cruise and brought a lot of fun energy.

“When Sabu was giving me these DMs, before he actually came on the Jericho Cruise because he did come on the cruise. He was great on it. He did a live podcast which was great. He got to reunite with Luther, his old friend from F.M.W., but he was texting me prior for years and he’d say he wants to come on the cruise and he wants to do a match with me where the loser jumps over the edge into the water. Here’s the classic Sabu part, he goes, ‘Now I’ll beat you, but I’ll still jump over the edge into the water…’ I’ll beat you on your own cruise, and then jump basically to your death.”

Sabu’s legacy is more than just his intense matches and creative wrestling style. It’s also about the passion he had for the business, which stayed strong until the very end. Whether he was asking for one more match or coming up with wild ideas like jumping off a cruise ship, Sabu really just loved pro wrestling in general. Therefore, fans will forever love and respect Sabu for everything he did for the business and that’s never changing.

What are your favorite memories of Sabu’s legendary wrestling career? Do you think his final match was a worthy send-off? Sound off in the comments.