 |
 |
videogames.com - Q and A with Raven - December 1999
videogames.com
December 17, 1999
Q and A with Raven
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: Where'd you get your name?
R: "Umm, I don't know - people just started like - my friends like, uh, my friends - I-I guess I got it as a nickname from one of my friends and it just, it just stuck, you know what I mean and, uh, I'm not actually sure, it just kinda stuck."
Q: How long have people been calling you Raven?
R: "Somewhere before I joined W - oh I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry before I got and joined ECW in the first place is where the nickname came and, uh, it just fit, you know what I mean, and it gave me a closing line to all my promos you know [inaudible] a signature saying, a catchphrase if you will, you know, "Quote the Raven, nevermore."
Q: How would you describe your role in ECW?
R: "Umm, in what capacity?"
Q: Like do you think of yourself as like just another wrestler or are you involved some kinda ...
R: "I-I help with the booking of the product. I help with the, uh, the creative direction. I help with umm .. I help the younger guys improve uhmm I help the younger guys improve in the ring as well with their gimmicks and their personas and I'm trying to bring out their characters."
"Because let's face it ... I'll give you the best example - Steve Corino. Looked like a jabro - he just looked like some indy worker, just some jabrone. I told him dye his hair blonde, grow your face hair. You look at him now and now he looks like a star. I mean you know I told him to get in the gym. I said get tan and get in the damn gym. It's a cosmetic business, you know? I mean, you know, your mic skills are tremendous but you just look like Joe Schmoe talking and people aren't gonna listen to him and now, you look at him and you know he's already put on 15 pounds. Umm he's tan, he's got white that white hair and the facial hair and now like I mean if you saw him in a bar you'd go, I bet you know I bet that's somebody, you know what i mean? As opposed to before you're just some long haired guy. It's-It's night and day."
Q: Where did you achieve your look?
R: "It's what I've always worn."
Q: Yeah?
R: "It's always been my look. It wasn't a look I set out - I-I drastically set out to get, you know what I mean? Like I went through all the weird phases like everybody else you know what I mean, when Breakin' was in, stuff like that. But eventually, what I settled on was what I was most comfortable in was ripped up jeans and a t-shirt, you know, and a black t-shirt and boots and I've been wearing that."
"When I was the WWF. I mean, when I was with the WWF, they used to make me, you know, dress up in that ridiculous Johnny Polo crap, uhhm, and then I was also a producer of Monday Night RAW and, uh, so they'd make me - so Vince [McMahon] set a policy so i had to wear a shirt and tie, which was - so as soon as the show was over, tie was off, shirt was off, leather jacket and ripped up jeans were back on. I mean so, it was, umm, it was a style - a style - a look I've always, uh, had. You know and then you know and when i go, uh, and then my ... and then the only time I really changed that is, uh, if I go out, I'll wear a 500 dollar dress shirt, you know what I mean. Which if I go out somewhere nice, you know what I mean?"
Q: Uh-huh.
R: "But other than that I mean, it's-it's umm ... Actually, now I've moved from jeans to leather pants, sort of the Jim Morrison thing, you know what I mean?"
Q: Uh-huh.
R: "With the - well, obviously, they're not - I mean they're custom made, but they're not like leather pants of a fancy nature; they're basically like a pair of jeans that happen to be leather - you know, like the Jim Morrison thing."
Q: So where do you get your clothes at?
R: "Well, the leather pants were custom made in Atlanta; the shirts, there's a store in Atlanta. In fact, all my friends shop there cuz there's generally no place to buy 2 and 3X, um, high quality shirts. It's, um, I forget the name of it, but not, I don't care if I plug it anyway - It's not like they'll cut me a break anyhow. It's really funny because I turned a lot of my friends onto the place but they could give a rat's ass."
"Yeah, so I, so I guess, so i go, this, this is, this is like a 500 dollar shirt [that Raven was wearing at the time of the interview] I guess. You know, but I mean - you know, you'd be surprised, until you buy, until you spend that kind - I mean that's a lot for a shirt but you wear a 500 dollar shirt and it feels like a 500 dollar shirt as opposed to a 25 or 50 dollar shirt or whatever you get at the mall. Just the way it fits on you and sits on you, it feels a lot more comfortable, you know? Plus they carry a lot of black stuff and I prefer black, you know?"
Q: Uh-huh.
R: "And flannel."
Q: Twinkies or Ding-Dongs?
R: "Umm ... actually, Hostess Pies. Right now, Tasty Cakes or the French Apple. But my dessert du jour is, uh, the Apple Chimichanga Cheesecake at, uhh, Appleby's. But I just discovered something - and I - I'll eat at least 5 desserts a day, umm, if you marvel why I don't get any fatter than I do. But, um, like uh - we were - the other night we were leaving the building and, uh, I was riding with Bill Alfonso and Spike [Dudley] and Little Guido, who is affectionately known as Napoleon - and, uhm, so I'm trying to get em out and everybody's ready to go and Fonzie's taking forever like he always does, and, uh, finally we get em out and go to the Appleby's and they close at 12 instead of 1. So I'm all out of it, shit I'm pissed off - so I go past it, there's gotta be something else open in this butthole town of Roanoake, which is, it's just a shithole, and, uh, there's an O'Charleys or something. So we go there, so they're not gonna serve us - they're serving appetizers, so I'm all - yeah I'm pissed and I go, do you have desserts? They say, yeah you can still get some desserts, so now I'm happy. So, uh, I-I think my meal consisted of potato skins, uh chicken tenders, and about 5 ... caramel, uh, caramel creme pies, just absolutely phenomenal. There was ice cream in the caramel. Think its caramel creme pie, or whatever its called. It's at O'Charley's, they're a big chain around the country, but absolutely tremendous."
Q: So you mentioned earlier that you haven't played video games in a long time. When do you think you got - you stopped playing video games?
R: "Um, oh shoot - let's see - I was always a pinball player, I was a phenomenal pinball player and I played that until pinballs went the way of the dinosaurs, um, that was back right around '70 - the beginning, the end was right around '76, I'd say, maybe '78, '80. Yeah, about '76 I'd guess, when video games started taking precedence and, um, maybe a little later. Anyway, um, probably played video games - I never played it a lot, but I probably played, played a lot of pinball, um, when I was, I remember when I was around 11 or 12, when i was 11, we moved to West Palm Beach, FL. and we were about 2/3rd's of a mile from the mall and also the West Palm Beach Auditorium. So every Monday, we'd go to the wrestling matches where I basically walked there. We used to walk to the mall every day and I guess that's about '76, I guess, and we started getting them and, I mean, the malls like they had pinball at the video game store/pinball place, as its called then, and they had pinball and they had video games and, uh, and so I mean I was such a good player and I would leave, and by the time I was done, I would leave, I would leave free games on the pinball machine when I was done. And then I'd sell 'em to the next kid. You know, the thing had a block; you couldn't win anymore than five games, and you know, which is bullshit, you could have had like 30 games. I could've sold 'em for a couple of bucks. If I had a total of like five games, I had left like 50 cents. There was this one great game called "Top Ten," I think it was, that thing would spun around and if you got something lit up, it spun around; it got like a thousand a point every time it spun instead of a hundred. Um, but I think I played - but after that, once I moved away from there, you know I played, you know you'd go to your mall and play but it wasn't a priority. And, uh, although my roomate, he's a phenomenal, like, Galaga player. The Pelican, that's his nickname - so, uh, he's got a bird name too. And, um, we call him the Platypus because it pisses him off. But, um, I think, I don't know, I-I was never a big video game player, to be honest. Probably mid-80's, I mean early 80's - Probably early 80's."
Q: What do you think of "Hardcore Revolution?" What do you think of the video game?
R: "Oh, I think its cool. I think its really cool, you know. I think my character should be able to kick everybody else's character's ass."
Q: Yeah, just like by default?
R: "Yeah, just by default. I think that, I think a guy like me who can't play for crap should still be able to play the Raven character and be victorious. But, uh, you know ..." [laughs]
Q: Maybe like a code that enables like massive Raven ass-kicking?
R: "Yeah, exactly. Sort of like in real life."
BACK TO MAIN INTERVIEW PAGE
|
|  |
|
|
