The way I see it, Sabu shouldn't have been in the ring. Him using kratom before the match is similar to when Kurt Angle was wrestling in the Olympics with a broken neck on painkillers, incredibly risky.
If you're already hurt, you probably shouldn't be fighting. Masking the pain with drugs and stepping into the ring anyway is like numbing a fractured leg and then sprinting on it. You might feel less pain in the moment, but you're likely to make the damage much worse.
Wrestling culture breeds this dangerous mindset that it's okay to compete when you should be in recovery. Sabu was as tough as they come but pain is a signal that you need to heal.
With that said Sabu was a real one. It's terribly sad. RIP.
