Kayfabe!: YouShoot with Sabu

Posted by Mike Campbell on 08.28.2009

Sabu answers the questions that his fans want to know, and nothing is off limits.

KAYFABE!
YOUSHOOT WITH SABU

Before I officially start this review, I’d like to thank Kayfabe Commentaries for sending this, and other, DVDs to be reviewed.

For those who aren’t familiar with concept, ‘Youshoot’ is a type of shoot interview where fans come up with the questions. They seem to originate at the Kayfabe Commentaries board, F4W board, and Wrestling Classics board. There are also videos that are sent in by fans in with questions for Sabu. Sean Oliver explains before the interview begins, that only the bravest in the business do a Youshoot since nothing is off limits.

The first thing that you’ll notice when watching this DVD is how quiet it is. You can hear Sean just fine, but you’ve really got to turn up the volume to hear Sabu. As great an idea it is, in theory, to let the fans ask the questions, this could have benefitted a bit from a combo of fan questions and also Sean, and other KC people, asking him stuff too. When the subject of sex and rats came up, almost every question was if Sabu had slept with Sunny. The only non-Sunny related question was about Missy Hyatt and that came in the form of a video sent in by . . . Missy Hyatt!

Like with Guest Booker, this is my first Youshoot experience. This wasn’t nearly as entertaining as GB W/ JC though. Part of it is because Sabu just isn’t a talkative guy. He even admits as such several times during the interview. The reason that he doesn’t cut promos isn’t because he thinks it would hurt his character, but he because he really doesn’t like to talk. A lot of his replies are just straight up yes and no answers and very little in the way of elaboration. For example, one fan asked if Dusty Rhodes was a cocksucker and Sabu says yes. But doesn’t say why he thinks that is other than the fact that Dusty got control of ECW when Heyman left. Nothing about what sort of changes Dusty imposed on ECW or anything about if Dusty and Pat Patterson had a secret meeting that got Dusty his gig on ECW.

Sabu does come out of his shell a few times, with good results. He tells the story of having a virtual dream match in Japan with Jyushin “Thunder” Lyger, and that it wound up such a disappointment because he was so tired. He was up all night trying to get his future wife into bed, and he’d finally done it. Now the next day, he was exhausted and had to wrestle Lyger. Also, he was supposed to wrestle either Lyger or Pillman on the first Nitro, but he got stuck in Japan, so he got held off until the next week where he wrestled Alex Wright.

Sabu also tells some funny RVD and WWE stories. When RVD and Sabu had their famous pot bust in summer 2006, Sabu’s reaction was “This sucks.” and RVD’s was “Yeah, where are we going to get more pot?” Also, Sabu claims to have not been in the Extreme Elimination Chamber at December to Dismember because he didn’t want to do a promo, and he fully admits to trying to get fired from WWE in 2007. He also talks about John Cena getting really pissed at him when Cena got a black eye, which Sabu says was Cena’s fault for not listening to Sabu on how to take his legdrop through the table.

I don’t want to bag on Sabu too much, but it’s not a good sign when Sean Oliver is more energetic and entertaining than the guy he’s interviewing. Sabu tells a story about giving Kurt Angle some pain pills after he’d torn his groin. Sean jumps in and makes a hilarious comment comparing Kurt taking out a black dick, to when Virgil (supposedly) did it to get his singles push. The fan videos are also quite funny, but more in a laugh-at-them way than in a laugh-with-them way.

Like the guest booker series, this is a great idea, but the execution on this outing wasn't quite as good. But that's due to Sabu's general bashfullness (that's coming from him, not me knocking him). With a more talkative subject (Sandman, Jamie Dundee and New Jack have also done Youshoots) I can see how these types of interviews can really be a blast.

The 411: It's a letdown compared to Guest Booker w/ Cornette. But anything that has to follow Cornette usually winds up being a letdown. Sabu does have some interesting things to say, but the low volume, and his general lack of elaboration on many things also holds it back.

Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]