Former WWE and ECW Superstar Raven recently spoke with Title Match Wrestling. During the interview, he discussed the original plans for his ECW character, his thoughts on Paul Heyman and Tommy Dreamer and more. You can check out some highlights and listen to audio from the interview below:
On getting too connected with his in-ring character: “I didn’t realize how personal it was gonna become, and then the character became so personal, so art imitated life, but then life started to imitate art when I started to become a bigger, you know, getting worse in drugs and alcohol. Because, in some perverse way, I was trying to stay true to who I created, to Raven, even though Raven was based on me. So, art imitated life, but then life started to imitate art, and that’s when things went downhill.”
On the original idea for his ECW character: “The original idea was I was gonna come in for three months to get [Tommy] Dreamer over. Paul E. [Heyman] didn’t realize what I was doing with the character. He thought I was going to do like a misfit grungy [character], but still a comedy character, because that’s all I’ve done before was chicken s**t heels. And that’s what he thought it was gonna be. But when he saw it wasn’t, that’s when the wheels started turning, and I told Paul E. before we even moved forward [and] even realized that’s what it was, I said look, if you want me to get him over quick, we need to have a back story. Because, if we have a back story, there’s already an emotional investment tied in, we can skip three months of programming, we can just jump into the meat of the programming if there’s a back story. So I came up with the back story when he gave me Stevie [Richards].”
On Paul Heyman booking Tommy Dreamer to beat him before he left: “He couldn’t know that I’d be back in two years, and he couldn’t count on that. And he had to get his mileage out of me. I had to put Tommy over to finally give catharsis to the feud, but in hindsight, sure, we never should have done it. Me and Tommy both thought we never should have done it, but from Paul E.’s point of view, we absolutely had to do it. I totally see that.”
On pro wrestling companies creating characters for wrestlers: “It’s not like in Hollywood where they have people whose job it is to cast parts, but that is what happens. Like, they’ll come up with an idea and say, ‘We need a pirate. Let’s make this guy a pirate because he has a glass eye or something.’ And that’s how roles are cast in the wrestling business, but in the old days [of] the business, you became who you wanted to become, and if it sold, it sold, and if it didn’t sell, then you would go back to the drawing board, or you get out of the business, or went into construction or something.”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6KXOBjJ7fs]
