Raven's Most Hardcore ECW Moments, Early Onset Parkinson's, WrestleMania, TNA, WWE Run
Raven (@theraveneffect) is a professional wrestler best known for his time in ECW and WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at the DDPY Performance Center in Atlanta, GA to discuss his new documentary "Nevermore: The Raven Effect" and why he wanted it to be warts and all, what was the hardest topic to cover in the documentary, an update on his current health and his early onset Parkinson's Disease, the inspiration behind his iconic look, the chair shot heard around the world, almost knocking out the power at WrestleMania 17, and more!
Visit Raven's website at: https://theraveneffect.com
You have stopped watching wrestling?
“I stopped watching. I saw some pay-per-views where I was a guest at a party. You know, they pay you to come in and sit around and watch the pay-per-view with everybody. I’ve done some of those. So I’ve seen some stuff, but not a lot, just a couple of reasons. One, I got so disenchanted, and then I just never started watching again, because I’ve already seen everything that there is, and I’m a completist, so I’d have to watch everything. There’s no time to read books or to watch other TV shows. With my sleep disorder, I need to take a nap every day, I need 9-10 hours sleep, so that cuts into my day. Watching wrestling would just take up way too much time. I’m already addicted enough to the UFC and MMA, to get addicted to back to wrestling again would be too much.”
What’s the sleep disorder that you have?
“They don’t have a name for it, but I know another person that has the same thing. The gist is that as you wake up so many times in the night that when you wake up in the morning, you’re still exhausted. So I have to wear a special CPAP that makes me breathe the air. I’m sure, from years of drug abuse and chair shots to the head and stuff like that, and abusing my body, I’m sure this is the price I’m paying. So I go to bed, I can fall asleep, no problem. But then I start waking up. After about two hours, I’ll wake up, and I’ll wake up like every 20 minutes for the next six to eight hours. So when I wake up for good, I’m exhausted, so I’m waking up like 15-20 times a night.”
How would you say your overall health is right now?
“It’s good. I mean, I got the early onset Parkinson’s, which I’m of the mind to say that I don’t have it. But it’s why I have the tremor, and that’s what they think it is. There’s no 100% proof tests, so I didn’t [get tested]. The test they give to prove it only proves it like 90% and there’s a lot of false positives and negatives in it. So there’s no reason, because he said he would treat me the same way, which is nothing as of now, because nothing’s bad enough, although my tremor is really bad right now.”
You’re not on any sort of medication?
“No, no. So there’s no reason. So I’m just going to declare that I’m not, that I don’t have early onset Parkinson’s and then and convince myself that I don’t, because I’ve had it for like 8 to 10 years, and all this is a tremor so far.”
What causes this?
“They don’t know. I haven’t put enough study into the diagnosis. Usually I figure out, read the doctor’s notes and all that. But I’d rather just play along. I say I have it, but I’m convinced I don’t. That it’s just a tremor, and I figure mind over matter. Hopefully it’ll stay just a tremor, as it has all these years.”
And you think it’s tied to the way you wrestled?
“Yeah, as I’m saying, I think it’s chair shots to the head. It’s like Ali swore that he didn’t have Parkinson’s, and it was just all the shots he took to the head. That’s what I like to think it is, that and all the drugs. I’m not proud. I used to be proud of my drug abuse, my ability to handle drugs. Now, I’m just embarrassed by it.”
Are you sober now?
“I’ve been sober for years.”
I loved the documentary. Was there anything you were afraid to show?
“No. I always wanted to write a book, because I thought my story was interesting and it could help people, [but] I’m too lazy to write a book. You know how much work goes into a book? Because you got to edit everything. I’m a perfectionist, though, so I’d be re-reading it and re-reading it and re-reading it. I don’t see how directors, when they make movies how their view must be. You must get so jaded when you’re editing down, and you’re going through something and you’re like, I gotta tighten this up. Should I tighten it up? Should I not? You look at it, your perspective must be so hard to keep because you’re looking at it over and over and over again. Like, if you look at doing a funny bit and you think, this is funny like this, it could be funnier like that. Could be funnier like that. What about this? Now, it’s not funny at all. Wait, where am I, you know? That’s how I’d be with a book. So the director came along and heard me on Steve Austin’s podcast and thought I was really fascinating. His words, but I’ll agree, just kidding. And he wanted to write a documentary about me. I said, I’ll do it, but as long as it’s warts and all, because I wanted to tell my story as the truth, not just rah, rah, you know, not just a happy-go-lucky piece and not just yay Raven, because that’s not what I’m about.”
How did you come up with the name Raven?
“I was watching The Crow for inspiration, and the character’s name was Eric Draven. I go, ‘Draven. Raven. Quote The Raven. Nevermore.’ All right, I got a name and a catchphrase. Boom, now I need an outfit. I put the outfit together in like two minutes, because it wasn’t hard to figure out. Then I came up with the idea of a concert t-shirt, because I’m a big believer in ring jackets. You gotta have a bunch of ring jackets, because to be a star, you gotta look like a star. But Raven’s character wouldn’t care about looking like a star. I had to get an anti-star look, that still was a star, made me look like a star. So I figured with the concert shirts, I’d have a different shirt every day. So every match I could have a variety without having to change my jacket. Plus, I had no chest. I always wanted to be a bodybuilder, but I never had the genetics for it. So I had a thick waist, no abs, flat chest but I had big arms and shoulders, at the time, until injuries took their toll, but that’s a long story. So I figured I would wear a concert t-shirt with sleeves cut off, show off the arms. You want to accentuate your strengths and hide your weaknesses. And I hid my weaknesses. And another weird thing about that is I had really good legs, like really good thighs, but I had such a thick waist that it took away from it, but my thighs were really good. But for the look I needed to cover them, because I would have wore short shorts, I would have looked lik Steve Richards. So sometimes you have to pick one or the other, you know what I mean. But it’s such a unique thing, trying to get the most out of everything you can with the least amount of effort.”
What bands were you listening to to create the character?
“Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, but also listen to a lot of black funk from the 70s too. That was always one of my favorites. I find that once you reach 40 years old, 40 to 50, you stop listening to current music, and you start listening to the stuff you listen to when you’re 10 or 12. So I went back to that, and I listened to a lot of the O’Jays and The Spinners.”
You guys were taking straight chair shots to the head in ECW. Was anyone putting their hands up?
“Yeah, some guys were, but then they get chastised by the rest of the locker room. The smartest thing ever, and it’s such a great spot, is Sabu used to take the chair and he’d throw it at you. Not only could you make it make a great clattering sound and make it fly off, but it didn’t hurt and it didn’t cause damage. We all should have been doing that, but that was brilliant to come up with.”
So what was the story behind the chair shot heard around the world?
“I had beaten up Dreamer so many times that they needed to get some revenge on me, and to give the people something. You had to give them something to hope in their babyface and give them something to look like it was over the feud. I forget exactly what led up to the chair shot, but when we got there, Paul is like, ‘I’m gonna have Tommy hit you 10 times with the chair.’ I’m like, ‘No, you gotta hit me once. It’ll mean so much more.’ He goes, ‘No, 10 times. You got to take it 10 times.’ I’m like, ‘No, I’m not going to do it, Paul.’ He goes, ‘What are you scared?’ And I’m like, ‘No, I’ll take nine chair shots back here, but I’m only taking one out there, because it’ll mean more if you hit me with a bunch of them.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, but Axl Rotten is hitting three chair shots in his match, and New Jack’s hitting five in his.’ I’m like, it doesn’t matter. This is something Roddy Piper taught me, doesn’t matter what happens in anybody else’s match, as long as they believe in your stuff. So I said, ‘I’m just taking one.’ He finally goes, ‘All right, I trust you.’ So if Dreamer gave me the one shot and it’s remembered. Imagine if there was five more coming after it, it wouldn’t have meant anything.”
Did you think the crucifixion angle was too controversial?
“I didn’t think it was pushing the envelope. I didn’t think so. I understand why Paul E made me cut an apology afterwards, but partly it’s because my family’s Jewish. I don’t follow the religion, but my family’s Jewish, and my last name is Levy, so people just assume I’m Jewish, and Paul E is Jewish, and Todd’s Jewish. Todd Gordon, the owner. So they thought it was a mockery of Christianity, but had nothing to do with that. I mean, Madonna masturbated with a crucifix on MTV., I’m thinking this is tame compared to that. To me, it was just a metaphor. It was a metaphor. The Crucifix with Sandman was just for him to feel my pain. Because Raven was always. I considered him a martyr for society’s dysfunction.”
While you were in ECW, was the goal to get back to WWE or WCW?
“I was really happy at ECW but yes, I wanted to go back to WWE. I wanted to be the top guy in the top promotion. I got to be the top guy in the number three promotion. And for a long time, I felt like my career was a failure because of that. I think I talked about it in the movie, in the documentary, but it took a lot of time on a therapist couch to let myself off the hook. Because you hold yourself to such a high standard that I can’t see the forest for the trees. If anybody would have came up to me and told me what my career was, and it was theirs. I said, Man, you got a really successful career. But I couldn’t count it as with that for me, because I didn’t get to be a World Champion of the WWE.”
Is it true you guys nearly knocked out the power at WrestleMania 17?
“That’s true. I’m driving the golf cart, and Show’s choking me. I didn’t expect Show to be choking me, so I wanted to swerve a little bunch because I didn’t want to just drive straight, because we’re supposed to drive all the way around the Astrodome, make a full 360-degree drive. And that was my favorite spot of the match, and I totally ruined it because there was a fence, a chain link fence from ceiling to ground, and the sidewalk dropped off on the other side of the chain. So I went to bounce off the chain with the car, figuring I bounce off and swerve back on, and the wheel just went off the edge and just died right there. The car wouldn’t move, you know, the golf car wouldn’t move because the wheel was off the road, and so I tried to get it back on, and Show is going ‘No, no, leave it. Leave it.’ I’m like, I want to go. Kane’s going to chase us in the other golf cart. It’s going to be so cool. So then I just ran out in the traffic and got run over by Kane.”
That could have been so bad:
“Yeah, but I had do something in my mind to make up for the spot that I screwed up. But when I found out after the show, one of the production guys grabbed a hold of me, and he said, ‘You know you came within millimeters of cutting off the power to the entire show. You landed right on the wire that has runs the power to the show, if you would have cut through, you would have killed power to the entire event.’ That would have got me so much heat, I would have definitely been fired for that.”
How many hardcore championships did you win?
“39, they only give me credit for 27 though.”
So where’s the extra 12?
“I don’t know. At some point, I go, Yeah, I wonder how many of these I’ve won. And so I counted back and then I counted forward after that, I got 39. But they get 27 so, yeah, but then a lot of times it would change hands three or four times in the night.”
Do you feel like you were underutilised in WWE?
“They should have pushed me. They didn’t really push me at all. I should have been used, at least as a strong mid-carder, if not a main eventer. But that’s me. I mean, I could be biased, and I’m sure I am, but looking at it objectively, I think I could have drawn money for them.”
What is Raven grateful for?
“Selina takes up all the spots.”
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