The following statement has been released to WZ in response to the in-ring and backstage incident involving Sabu and Eric Simms at the 4/5 PWS event in New Jersey:
Eric Simms had zero involvement with the PWS Super Card events yet was there walking around like the Mayor Of Indy Ville. He was frequently seen pitching wrestlers to join his "ESS Promotions" which is essentially him acting as a booking agent for a wrestler. Several wrestlers approached me asking if we could keep Simms away from them as he was pestering.
At Super Card Night 2 Sabu was brought to PWS by Lucky 13 Promotions to sign autographs. Sabu worked for PWS for years , I had asked him if he wanted to do anything on the show itself and he declined as he did not have his gear with him and did not want to go to the ring without gear which was understandable. This was only asked of him as Sabu owed PWS a booking stemming from a no show several years back.
During the semi main of Night 2 between Jushin Liger and John Morrison , Sabu's music hit and he came to the ring. Pat Buck and I had zero clue what was going on as neither of us had cleared this or were spoken to about this. We felt as if our show was being hijacked. As Sabu got into the ring, Eric Simms walked into the back of the locker room where Pat and I were standing near the monitors. Simms said "oh so you guys like my idea". "YOUR idea???" I said. Simms put over that he thought it would be a great way to get Sabu on the show. As we explained to Simms, he has zero involvement with PWS, has zero right to make decisions of any sort, and has zero rhyme or reason to be in our locker room. Our sound guy (whom is a PWS student) informed us that Simms approached him with Sabu's music saying "Pat and Eric told me to give this to you to play after Liger and Morrison are introduced, they're both really busy so they asked me to give you the music". Sabu went to the ring in cargo shorts, shook the hands of Morrison & Liger, than sat down at the commentary table. This segment made zero sense from a booking perspective as there was no plan to build up to a future interaction between Sabu and either of these guys. As Sabu doesn't speak , it made even less sense that he was seated at the commentary table. This made us furious as we had a tv production crew filming the event as well as streaming on iPPV. We later found out that Simms had struck a deal with Sabu where Sabu would sign autographs for him at a vendor table (Simms never paid for a vendor table mind you) after the show, therefore Simms wanted Sabu to be seen in the ring towards the end of the show to boost autograph sales.
Simms was told to leave the locker room. He refused. He was told again to leave, again he refused and then put his hands up. Simms is a large guy in his early 40s that frequently would post on social media about his "martial arts training". We didn't want further issues, we wanted this guy to leave and for Sabu to get to the locker room immediately. When Simms put his hands up he was smacked with an open hand and again told to leave. He took a step back, still refused to leave, and lunged at me. Simms, whom towers over me was then jabbed. At that point he was removed from the locker room and security escorted Sabu from ringside. Simms was never attacked or jumped or anything like that. There were over 30 witnesses to this.
Sabu came into the back , he apologized for any misunderstanding and said he thought Simms was involved with the show and the two of them had come up with the idea.
Simms left only to return with police a few minutes later. The police did not find that any crime was committed on our end, however did inform us that what Simms did would constitute a misdemeanor.
The following day I received multiple photos of Eric Simms in a neck brace at Wrestlecon, frequently making poses to sell an alleged neck injury. We were notified that Simms has a pre existing neck injury and he had told several reliable people within wrestling that this was all a work for him to attempt to press charges against PWS. A couple days later photos of Simms wrestling with guys in a bar emerged on social media.
Pics enclosed.
End all be all - PWS runs wrestling events. We put a lot of time and effort into what we do and are outraged that Eric Simms would hijack our event in a highly unprofessional manner.
