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Raven Interview - totalnonstop.com - 2003
Raven Interview
2003 by totalnonstop.com
Q and A with Raven
Interview by Bo Heyward
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Several years ago, there was a fledgling promotion named Extreme Championship Wrestling that was just getting off the ground. Now, the legacy of ECW has reached mythical proportions. Although many wrestlers contributed to the rise of this promotion, one name is constantly brought up when reliving tales of classic matches: Raven. The self-imposed leader of the downtrodden and disenfranchised raised the bar on brutality in professional wrestling. He would later work for WCW and WWE, but it was with ECW that his legacy was forged. But now Raven has brought his brand of pain and punishment to NWA TNA and has sided with the self-proclaimed Anti-Christ of professional wrestling: Vince Russo.
It's not everyday one gets a chance to interview someone who's work they respect. Those who know me know that for the last several years I have followed Raven's career pretty closely, so it was a great opportunity to be able to interview him after the TNA show on February 5th. Although topics dealing with WWE are still off limits at this time, Raven shared his thoughts on Paul Heyman, Bill Goldberg, and the future of NWA TNA.
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Q: Based on your experience with all the major feds you've been with, in the limited time you've been with TNA is there anything you've noticed that makes you think TNA has a real good chance of succeeding in becoming a big promotion?
R: "Yes. Dixie Carter, she's in charge of the monetary and fiduciary aspect, and after spending time with her I definitely think it has a chance to survive. I think with Vince Russo's brain, my star power, Disco Inferno's insanity, Mike Sanders' ego....I think there's a lot of aspects that are going to make this promotion succeed. It reminds me of ECW in many ways, when ECW was starting out, except a better business plan."
Q: Speaking of ECW, your feud with Tommy Dreamer is pretty legendary. Do you think the way the business is today a feud with that kind of intensity and longevity could happen again?
R: "Absolutely. I believe, all ego aside, I will put Raven/Dreamer or Raven/Sandman, either feud, up against any feud in the history of the business and not because I was in it, and I'm honored to have been in it, but because of Paul E.'s brilliant booking, you know? I had my two cents, Dreamer had his two cents, Sandman had his half a cent....or lack of sense, it was just incredibly cleverly written. The simple and oldest story in the world - two best friends from childhood fight over a girl, and Dreamer could never pin me. He beat me, he beat me senseless, left me in a heap, but he could never pin me. For two and a half years he never pinned me. And we just found ways to make the chase so fresh and so exciting that nobody ever got tired of it. I think Russo has that kind of mind, that he can write that kind of creative story and I think there's definitely a potential for it here."
Q: When people talk about ECW, Paul Heyman's name always gets brought up and a lot of opinions on him vary greatly. What was your opinion on working with him?
R: "I loved working for Paul E. Paul E. and me were like Scorsese and DeNiro. I don't want to say I'm the equivalent of DeNiro, I don't mean it that way except that how they've made so many movies together, me and Paul E. did so much together. I couldn't have done it without him ,he couldn't have done it without me and we both know that. Paul E.'s insane, I'm eccentric. I still love him to death. I'll always have a fondness for Paul E."
Q: When you first went to WCW in '97, what were some of the biggest differences, outside of the stories we always hear of bad management, of '97 and when you left in '99. What was the attitude in the locker room like?
R: "I don't really remember, I had a serious drug problem back then, which I don't any longer. I don't know, I've got fond memories...maybe the drugs have hampered my memory, maybe I was more miserable than I thought I was, but I remember having a great time. I think they overworked us. I once spent a...I think it was a 48 or 54 day loop, which is ridiculous being on the road for that many straight days. And I think honestly it's the same story that happens everywhere else, is they refuse to bring the middle up, you know? Me, Jericho, and Konnan were at the top of the middle, the bottom of the top...whatever...we're at the top of the middle and they would never let us into the top, or Benoit, and there's a few others. And so the top was just the same guys fighting the same guys and it just got to be old and tired. I really believe...and it's the same thing with Vince's [McMahon] thing now. It's the top guys versus the top guys. I disagree with that. I think you gotta influx new talent all the time, bring guys up to the top. You've got to make new stars, make new top guys. Making new middle guys isn't enough for business, gotta make new top guys."
Q: In August of '99 when you left, would you have done that if you knew that Vince Russo was going to be coming in in a couple of months? ?
R: "No. Absolutely not. If...I don't know, who's to say. I was unhappy, I was miserable and to me it's always been about the art. To me this is an art form, it's an art every bit as much as ballet...and I defy people in the ballet to do it without rehearsing like we do. I did it for the art and I'm not sure...and that's why I left because I wanted to go back and work with Paul E. but I didn't realize Paul E. was burnt out, I didn't realize the TNN thing was gonna go nowhere, I didn't realize a lot of things had changed since when I had left ECW. In hindsight it probably wasn't a wise decision but at the time it made perfect sense to me. "
Q: In WCW on the Nitro after you won the U.S. belt you lost it to Goldberg. Like Paul Heyman, Goldberg is another name that a lot of opinions vary greatly on. What was your opinion on working with him as a wrestler?
R: "Well I just made up the match and told him to follow me. I think there's probably stuff I wanted to do that he wouldn't do, I'm sure of that, I don't really remember what. My opinion of Bill is this: I hate the fact that he completely says how much he hates wrestling and wrestling is crap and beneath him and blah, blah, blah, when he made more money sitting home the last two years than most of us are ever going to make in our careers. I mean guys that eat, sleep, and breathe this...the way he feels about football is the way we feel about wrestling. I'm sure if he found out that there were top guys in football that go "bah, we don't really care about this", that would make him feel like crap because he worked his whole life to be a football player and he didn't really make it. He got like a year or two of the pros and that was it. It's just insulting to me that we work so hard and it's beneath him. And he's getting paid more money than any of us. I mean he got more money sitting home than I'm gonna make in my whole career. It's infuriating. But hey, whatever, you know what I mean? That's his business. "
Q: In "Star Wars" Episodes IV, V, and VI, did it bother you that they made it seem like being a Jedi was based on your faith in the force, where in Episode I it was based on the level of midichloreans in your body?
R: "I don't recall, but I thought the best one was number two, actually number five "The Empire Strikes Back". I thought the other ones pretty much sucked, you know the newer ones. The original third one was kind of cheesy, and Episode IV, the original, was brilliant at the time but I watched it on the twenty-fifth anniversary on the big screen and it was terrible. Didn't hold up at all."
[ENTER VINCE RUSSO] "What are we talkin' about over here?"
Q: I asked him a "Star Wars" question, can I ask you?
VR: "Yeah."
Q: In "Star Wars" did it bother you that in Episodes IV, V, and VI, it made it seem like being a Jedi was based on your faith in the force, where in Episode I it was based on the level of midichloreans in your body?
VR: "That bothered me tremendously."
Q: Did you lose sleep over it?
VR: "I lost a lot of sleep over it, I was tremendously bothered by it..."
R: "He was getting phone calls from Disco day and night."
VR: "Yeah, talkin' about that very thing."
R: "Disco actually went into a deep depression."
Q: It's kept me awake many nights
VR: "It's very disturbing, very disturbing."
Q: Now before you got into wrestling you got a degree in criminal justice. What made you switch from an interest in law enforcement to wrestling?
R: "Well I figured...you see I wanted to go into the FBI or the CIA, perhaps the DEA, and I realized that as a drug addict that it probably wouldn't be a wise choice. Honestly I wanted to be in the CIA, but I just always wanted to be a pro wrestler first and fame and fortune won out over getting murdered in a foreign land, although I was in the Marine Corps."
Q: How long did you serve?
R: "I took a semester off of college, went to boot camp, carried the flag which is the number one guy in the platoon, and then I went back to college and went in the reserves."
Q: You worked on "Spider Man : Tangled Web" issue number fourteen about Crusher Hogan. You have any more plans for any future collaborations?"
R: "Yes. Me and Chad Damiani, who's also a brilliant commentator...hint hint to Vince, me and him are actually working on a comic book that I've been working on off and on for years that we're finally gonna finish it up and put to bed and publish it. Then we'll turn it into a screenplay and I'll be a billionaire, because I'll play the character in the movie too."
Q: Well that leads to my next question because with all the comic book movies coming out, Hulk, Superman, Daredevil...
R: "Yeah I gotta call my buddy, he's the producer of those movies, I gotta call and get me an audition one of these days."
Q: What comic book character would you make a movie out of if you could, and who would play it?
R: "I think the perfect character for me to play is Dead Pool. I guess that answers your question, I think they should make a movie on Dead Pool and I should play the Dead Pool character."
Q: Can you see yourself working in the wrestling business after you get out of the ring?
R: "No, because I don't want to be behind the scenes, I don't enjoy it. I think it's fun to add ideas here and there and to tweak things but I don't want to be in the creative process, I'm a performer. I don't want to be behind the camera, I like to be in front of it. I crave the spotlight."
Q: Final question. In a one on one fight between the Incredible Hulk and Superman, who would win and why?
R: "Batman. Batman could beat anybody."
Q: No, no, no....Superman or Hulk?
R: "Superman, obviously."
Q: Why?
R: "Because ..."
Q: I'd say Hulk.
R: "Why would you say that?"
Q: Because man, he's so strong, for example he can jump into outer space with one jump.
R: "So can Superman."
Q: But if he got a hold of Superman he'd rip him limb from limb.
R: "Doesn't matter, Superman is smarter. I mean, Wolverine beat The Hulk."
Q: But that was, bah ...
R: "Tons of people have beat The Hulk, no one has ever beaten Superman, except for Batman."
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