Top 5 ECW Champions

5. Sabu – 2 reigns – 93 days as champion

The homicidal, suicidal, genocidal, death-defying maniac known as Sabu is one of the most iconic ECW wrestlers of all time, and, for many of us, this was our first impression of the man:

Sabu lept off of the Raw sign in 1997 and stole the show from Taz and Mikey Whipwreck. He didn’t say a word, just took a death-defying leap before being dragged out by a ton of security. Who was this madman? Why did he do that? What the hell is going on?! These were all things my 12 year-old mind was screaming as I watched ECW invade the WWE.

Sabu is a legacy and a legend, and his tight-mouthed approach only added to the mystique. Sabu was the nephew of the original Sheik, Ed Farhat, who taught him to be a technical wrestler. However, technicality would not be his modus operandi, and his years in Japan’s Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling would shape and scar his body as much as his career.

Sabu joined ECW in 1991 and would defeat Terry Funk for his first ECW title reign in October of 1993. Sabu held the title for 85 days before dropping it back to Funk the day after Xmas. Sabu would later no-show an ECW event and be fired by Paul Heyman, but would return in 1995. It was during his second run with the company that Sabu had, arguably, his most famous match: a barbwire match against Terry Funk. During the match, Sabu ripped a 10″ gash in his arm, taped it up, and kept going. The match ended with both men tangled in barbed-wire and having to be cut free. It’s the one match Paul Heyman described as “gruesome” and was scared of ever booking again due to what it took out of the competitors.

Funk would say, of the match, that he’d never seen anything like what Sabu did. His body is like a road-map of pain, etched in the scars of so many death-matches. The man bled and sacrificed himself in a way only Terry Funk and Mick Foley may understand. So, despite his second reign only lasting eight days, Sabu is one of the men who defined ECW and hardcore, and his legacy alone earned him a spot on this list.

• the sandman
• tommy dreamer
• ecw
• nwa world heavyweight championship
• raven
• tazz
• sabu
• Extreme Rules
• shane douglas
• paul heyman
• NWA
• wwe

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