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RAVEN INTERVIEW
WOW Magazine
Q. When did you realize you were not happy working for WCW?
A. While DDP and Chris Benoit were involved in a three way angle, I was the only person in the company getting good heel reactions, with fans chanting, "Raven sucks, Raven sucks" whenever I came out. Other than Eddy Guerrero, who is a great heel, all the other heels were getting tepid responses. They didn't draw the kind of animosity and pure hatred that I did. That's when DDP got over. At one point, he was a monster. They weren't cheering, "DDP, DDP." They were cheering, "Raven sucks, Raven sucks." That's a big difference. It means the heat is so overpowering, the fans want the heel to get beat up more than they want to see the babyface win. There's a distinct difference.
Q. You didn't feel appreciated in the company even though you were getting such great heat from the fans?
A. At that time I thought I should have ascended into the "big ten," which includes wrestlers such as Bret Hart, Hulk Hogan, Sting, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall. I sat at number 11 for two and a half years, which I thought was completely unfair, biased and purely political. I though WCW made a mistake and should have elevated me. I felt like I was the sixth man off the bench in basketball when I should have been in the starting five. I still got tons of TV time and got to book my own angles for awhile, but members of the booking committee kept adding their own twists and turns. Invariably, it never came out the way I wanted it.
Q. How did you feel when that happened?
A. Eventually, I was miserable. And that's why I stayed in ECW so long. When I originally came here, I planned to stay for only four months, but I stayed for two and a half years because I loved it. I had no reason to leave. Eric Bischoff made me at least five very lucrative offers to come in during that two-and-a-half-year tenure. I was happy with ECW, which is something you can't replace. I got really miserable by the end [in WCW]. So, I went on Mancow's Morning Madhouse radio show and said how crappy I thought the show was. Of course, that led to the infamous meeting with Bischoff. Plus, the reports that Eric told everyone who wanted to leave that they could do so were wrong. That's not how it went.
Q. What exactly happened at that August 23 meeting?
A. I had been up all night and got about an hour of sleep. I put on the same clothes I had on the night before and went to the meeting a couple of hours late. I went to the locker room, and he called the meeting. The first thing he said was, "Scott Wilkinson, our attorney, is right outside. Raven, if you're unhappy with the company and want your release, you can go right now." I said, "See ya," and walked out the door.
Q. It wasn't a universal, "anyone can leave" declaration?
A. No. Absolutely not. I was singled out. After I left, he singled out some other guys, but what happened with them is none of my business.
Q. Did Bischoff let you walk out or did he try to reason with you?
A. Eric talked to me later and said, " I think you made a mistake." I said, "I've got too much pride to ask for my job back, and you've got too much pride to offer it back, so we're pretty much at a standoff here." He said, "I think you really need time to think about this." I asked him how long, and he said to take as much time as I want. We talked about three more times that night.
He also asked me, "why are you going to leave? Where are you going to work?, for Paul E.?" I said, " No, I'm going to Vince." He said, "You're not going to Vince." I said, "You offered me a release and I think that should allow me to go anywhere." He said, "Yeah, you're right."
Q. Why did you go to ECW?
A. My heart wanted to come to ECW, but my head wanted to go to McMahon because the WWF is the biggest company with the most money to offer. I love Cactus Jack (Mick Foley) and Steve Austin. They're good friends of mine, and I wanted to work with them. Plus, the WWF needed a heel. When ECW got national TV coverage, I thought, "This is where my heart's been. This is the love of my life, ECW. The two and a half years I spent with ECW were the greatest years of my career and my life."
Q. Could you have gone to the WWF?
A. I felt I deserved the option, but ultimately I'm glad Bischoff didn't give it to me. He said he was going to give me the option, then his attorney said to me," He's not going to give you the option. You can only go to ECW." I said, "That's wrong. Eric just told me I could go to WWF." He said, " No, you can't." So I was running on an hour of sleep, and that's obviously not the best time to make a life altering decision. I was going to take a red-eye flight home, because I was wiped out from partying all weekend, but I decided to stay. I ran into Eric that night, and he said he really wanted me to stay in WCW. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to be a part of ECW. I couldn't let them go on national TV without being there.
Q. How do you get along with Bischoff now?
A. I always got along with BIschoff and I like him as a person. Bischoff said I could come back any time I want. In fact, he has even more respect for me now than before for walking out. It took alot of balls to stand up to those egos, and he tried to humiliate me in front of the boys. I walked, and that really got over with him because he respects that.
Q. Besides the emotional connection and the sense of loyalty, what other benefits do you see from returning to ECW?
A. Paul E. is the Martin Scorsese to my Robert Deniro. Lets face it, we're not the greatest actors in the world. I consider myself one of the better ones. The gimmicks you saw before - Scotty Flamingo, Scotty the Body - represented the manic side of my personality. That's from not getting attention as a child. I didn't care if it was good or bad. I wanted attention, and that's wanted attention. The more flamboyant I was, the more attention I got, but I wasn't getting anywhere like that. So I decided to explore another side of my personality. I made TV a forum for my own personal baggage.
Q. Describe what it's like working for ECW.
A. ECW is like a Led Zeppelin tour. It's a giant party going down the tracks at breakneck speed with no brakes. I'm like the Robert Plant of this outfit. I'm the charismatic front man, similar to Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain. Wrestlers are like rock stars. We play the crowd. We tour year round. It's not like a regular sport. It's a hectic lifestyle, and it's hard to live on the road. Some of these guys have families and they miss them, but if you're like me - single forever - you have no one to care about. Partying makes you feel less of the pain and more of the joy. Tracey Smothers came in for a tour of the company and said the ECW locker room is like a nightclub. That's what it is. Everyone loves each other. There are a couple miserable bastards in the company, but for the most part, we're one big happy family.
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