PWInsider - WWE News, Wrestling News, WWE

 
 

SHOULD AL SNOW HAVE WON THE ECW TITLE, WAS BRYAN DANIELSON GOING TO BE NWA CHAMPION, PABLO MARQUEZ AND MORE

By Mike Johnson on 2020-03-20 10:00:00

Al Snow has said he believes ECW should have pulled the trigger and had him defeat Shane Douglas for the championship when he got really over in 1998. Do you agree? 

I would agree.  He was the hottest character in ECW at the time as Shane was really banged up, to the point he had to be driven to Georgia laying on a mattress in the back of a van because he couldn't fly due to a broken palatte.  The word came out over the course of that weekend that Snow was going back to WWE, which did come to pass.

When TNA and the NWA ended their association in 2008, they had a tournament for the vacant championship. The finals was supposed to be Brent Albright vs Bryan Danielson. However, Bryan suffered the orbital bone injury from Takeshi Morishima and had to pull out. He was replaced by Adam Pearce, who went on to win and have several reigns. What was the original plan? Bryan would have made an amazing traveling NWA champion in that era.

Danielson was slated to win the belt I believe.

In Sabu’s book (which I honestly don’t recommend, as it’s filled with typos and a lot of storytelling issues) he mentions that when he left ECW they took El Puerto Ricano aka Pablo Marquez aka Babu from WWE and gave him a character called “Ubas,” which is Sabu spelled backwards. And, basically, he wrote that it bothered him that they gave his gimmick to somebody else after he left. I have no memory of this happening and haven’t seen any footage of it. What’s the real story?

Sabu is misremembering.  Pablo Marquez did work as UBAS, sort of a tribute to Sabu, on the independents.  Sabu later took him under his wing for a time and mentored him.  Marquez worked as Babu in WWE, a sort of Virgil to Tiger Ali Singh's Ted DiBiase, but the gimmick was not a Sabu-based character.  Marquez is still active in the business, training talents in Florida.

What was up with Stevie Richards’ brief ECW return in 1997? He came back as a heel, did a couple interviews, had a match against Chris Chetti, then was gone.

He was supposed to get a big push but had additional neck injury issues and was done.  He only made 2-3 appearances.  When he got his health together, he was able to get into WWE.

If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here!