Wrestling legend Sabu passed away over the weekend at a relatively young age of 60 and it came just weeks after his “retirement” match where he headlined Joey Janela’s GCW Spring Break event – a match which as it turns out was danger of not happening Soon after that match, Janela gave an interview talking about Sabu’s deteriorating health which raised eyebrows. At the time, Janela stated:

“I was fairly confident that he was fine. I was kept in contact with him and he has a team of people around him, guys this time. They were all saying he was ready to go, that he was going to the gym, that he was on a training program. I believed them until the day of the show. Then two hours before, I get a call: ‘Sabu can’t walk.’”

“What do you mean Sabu can’t walk? They said, ‘Yeah, Sabu, something with his knee — they’re locked up. He can’t walk. And his feet are bleeding. He’s not coming. Sabu’s not coming.’ I said, ‘Sabu’s f***ed.’ So we talked to [indie wrestler] Matt Tremont, and Tremont is about to be the replacement for the match. And I feel like this is going to be the most embarrassing moment of my wrestling career. There’s 2,000 people here. This is one of the biggest Spring Breaks ever. The biggest crowd ‘Mania weekend, indie-wise. And I’m going to have to go out there and announce that Sabu, once again, no-showed. And no-showed his own retirement match.”

“We are an hour into the show and I said, ‘Just get Sabu here. So they gave him something called kratom. You can buy it at a smoke shop or something; it’s like a legal opiate or something. They said, ‘He’s hopping on the bed, he’s hopping off the bed, and we’re going to get him to the show.’ So he shows up two hours into the show. Sabu was on a different f***ing planet. Everyone in the backstage was like, ‘What the f***? Is this match going to happen?’ And my God, did it happen.”

Following Sabu’s death, Janela’s comments resurfaced as many fans pointed to the use of ‘kratom’ as potentially contributing to his passing. Janela took to X to defend himself:

““We didn’t give him kratom his team did, it’s also not illegal and 85% of professional wrestlers do it especially the ones on tv. So f*** you. Sabu was a grown man, he did what he had to do to get out there. I took care of him to the best of my ability, I didn’t think what happened half way through would happen, it was all to get him one great payday and one last shine in the spotlight. That night wasn’t about me, it was about sabu and I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“People use kratom to get off pills, I didn’t give shit to him. Unfortunately people are acting like I shot someone up with black tar heroin or dropped something in his drink.”

GCW owner Brett Lauderdale also defended his usage of Sabu during the GCW sponsored Spring Break event:

“Any suggestion that I or “GCW” or Joey Janela “forced” him to do this match, supplied him with substances or somehow caused his death is irresponsible, disingenous, hurtful, and false. It’s upsetting and discouraging to see people so eager to cast judgment without knowledge of the facts.”

“I would never knowingly put someone who I believed was a danger to themselves or others in the ring and my track record shows this to be true,” he continued. “I have pulled people – in a public and painful manner – from big matches before, sometimes literal moments before a match was to begin and would do it again if I had to.”

“I spoke to Sabu moments before the match and he was Sabu. He was the same Sabu I had encountered in years past when I participated in his matches as a referee and later as a promoter. He was the same Sabu I met with the following day at WrestleCon, and the same Sabu that made multiple appearances on podcasts and at conventions in the weeks that followed.”

Sabu was my friend, and I was devastated to learn of his passing…

Please read: pic.twitter.com/yNJUxJJJgu

— brett lauderdale (@Lauderdale11) May 13, 2025

Fightfulselect.com reported that Janela also commented on his original interview, suggesting that he embellished certain aspects of it to further put over the “lore of Sabu” but that GCW was “frustrated, embarrassed and humiliated” by his interview with Lauderdale speaking to Janela about it afterwards.