411’s Nevermore: The Raven Effect Report

-Written: 8.20.26
-Source: Tubi
-Run Time: 1:57:46

-I finally decided to use these reviews to create an electronic book that you can now purchase through Amazon. I figured 1996 was the best year to start. Thanks in advance for any purchases or sharing or just getting the word out.

Leighty’s Retro Wrestling PPV Reviews: 1996 WWWF and WCW

-Director: Geordie Day
-Studio: Nightschool Films
-Rating: TV-MA

-I have been a huge fan of Raven since I was in high school. I’ve been a member of a Western PA sports board (mainly high school and college sports) for over 25 years and my username is KidRaven. There is something about the character that made me a fan. I am nothing like the Raven character as I don’t drink, smoke, do drugs, have tattoos or piercings. I wasn’t into grunge as in my high school days I was all about R&B like Boyz II Men, but the character just clicked with me. I caught the end of his ECW run and was thrilled when he jumped to WCW. When he ended up with the WWF I kept hoping they would do something with him and even mentioned ideas on message boards where he would be revealed as The Stalker of Mrs. Undertaker in 2001. For some reason I really wanted a Raven/Taker feud.

-Once this documentary was announced I knew I had to see it, but waited until it popped up on a streaming service I owned. That day is here as Tubi is now streaming it for free. I started watching the first 30 minutes and realized I usually do recaps of these types of shows, so here we are.

-The first person we see is Billy Corgan, who says his hope is this documentary gets to the heart of the person. Under everything there is a sensitive and intelligent artist. He calls Raven a singular character that is worth all the trouble. He notes wrestling is a brutal business that attracts fame whores, coke whores, adrenaline whores, and then it attracts an artist like Raven. He says Raven is more Van Gogh than Rick Rude.

-We get footage from The 2300 Arena (ECW Arena) and we hear the famous speech Paul Heyman gave to the roster before the first ECW PPV (Barely Legal). Raven (I will just refer to him as Raven instead of Scott Levy) says Paul motivated them and thought of himself as Vince Lombardi. They were one big team fighting the opposition. Chris Jericho (making sure he has an AEW jacket on) is here and says you were working with Paul and elsewhere you were working for Vince McMahon or Eric Bischoff.

-Raven says he hasn’t been back to The Arena in years. Tommy Dreamer calls it the biggest shit hole in the world. He notes The Raven character was brilliant and Heyman called it his favorite character. Raven talked about dad issues and how he was an outcast. We see some of the ECW Raven promos and they are great. Lodi talks about how influential Raven was and how people would dress like him. Raven says people actually named kids after him and those kids would grow up and show their driver’s license to prove it. He felt Raven was a martyr for society’s dysfunction and everyone needed to feel his pain.

-Nevermore: The Raven Effect!

-ECW Arena as fans are lined up for a convention. Raven says he is on the card so he will take credit for the crowds. We see old man Raven trying to figure out how to turn the heat off his car seat and then says to leave it in the documentary as it’s pretty funny.

-Raven heads inside and meets with Sabu, Vampiro, Shane Douglas, Sandman, Kevin Thorn, and Todd Gordon. I am getting The Wrestler flashbacks with this scene. Raven tells us that he wouldn’t have the career he did without the fans. He says it can also be a pain in the ass and he doesn’t mean to come off as a jerk. You sit there for five hours and the fans ask the same boring questions. He tells the fans he is retired due to his knee surgeries. He will be 59 when he restarts wrestling again.

-We meet Selina Kyle, his partner, and she says wrestling is Raven’s mistress. She doesn’t think he misses the fame or the accolades. She continues that he has a hard time accepting that he has made a big impact on wrestling. She thinks the more he accepts that he may be able to walk away. “Or not, these wrestlers never let it go.”

-Raven meets up with JBL and they talk about the Mind Games PPV where Bradshaw nearly beat up Sandman and Dreamer because he didn’t know there supposed to be ECW invaders.

-Raven tells us he fell in love with wrestling when he was 7-8 years old. That was when Dusty was in the middle of his run in Florida. Dusty was over huge and Raven loved the morality play of good vs. evil. He didn’t realize it at the time, but knows now that the psychology of wrestling appealed to him. We get some great Florida footage and then home videos of Scott as a child. We meet his sister, Debby Levy. She says Scott always wanted to be a wrestler and daredevil. Next we meet his fraternity brother, Mike Giuffrida, and he says being a wrestler was the only plan Scott had.

-We see photos of Raven in college wrestling with his frat brothers. Debby says Raven had a smart mouth and loved to be the center of attention. Raven says he got bored easily and had no tolerance for it, so he talked a lot which annoyed people. We see photos of him mooning people in college and then photos of him in the Marines. He always got the broads and was loud and obnoxious. “You either loved Scott or hated Scott without much in between.”

-Back to The Arena as they have a show that night and Raven complains about not having a banner with his name hanging in the Arena like other ECW Legends. Dave LaGreca asks him about it after the show and yeah, it’s weird. I mean, Blue Meanie is up there and not Raven. Raven says it does and doesn’t bother him as he does think he deserves more recognition. He thinks he should be up there, but “who cares if I’m not. I’m not losing any sleep over it.”

-He told everyone he wanted to be a wrestler, but that’s usually for other people. He decided at worst he needed to try to at least say he gave it a go. He started at The Monster Factory that was run by Larry Sharpe. We see early footage of Scotty The Body training and Raven says he used the name for easy heat. He wasn’t a big, jacked up guy, but he could tell everyone he was. He says he had terrible genetics for bodybuilding because he’s Jewish. “I have great genetics for intelligence.” He started taking steroids and was on the road soon as there wasn’t much more to learn from Larry. He was a natural and says the only other thing he was a natural at was taking opiates. The man has a sense of humor! He sent tapes around and that lead him to Portland.

-Portland: He became a local celebrity and we see him doing a commercial for Economy Home as Scotty The Body. He shows one of the shirts he had for sell in Portland. He learned a lot from The Grappler and the big thing was building episodic wrestling. He would bring a different girl out each week for cheap heat and one week he found a girl smoking crack in his coke dealer’s house and used her because she had big tits and was a stripper. Her tit pops out the first time on camera. “This is awesome and I am going to make her my permanent valet.” The man has a way to tell his stories and I am here for it.

-We get Portland footage and he comes up with a wedding angle. Ginger is with Steve Doll and he wants to win her back. He gets a different valet, but it’s business only as he wants Ginger back. They build week to week and he asks Ginger to marry him, and the answer is delayed a week. She accepts and then the wedding is the next week. We get to the wedding and Raven heels on her as he refuses to marry her. Later it leads to the two women getting into a shoot fight on camera and Raven and Doll thought it was great so they let them fight. Don Owens fired him for not breaking up the fight.

-After Portland he moved to Atlanta because WCW was there. Before getting into WCW, he started stripping to make money and have fun. He says wrestling and doing drugs are the two things he is really good at. “Doing drugs is not something you want to be fucking good at.” He had a different girl every day of the week and would have a bunch of toys like flamingos and light sabers to use on them. His friend Juan: “You hear a guitar smacking some girls ass. Bizarre to say the least.”

-We are back to present day as Raven takes us to his basement to show off his wrestling stuff. He shows off his fist tattoo which was a flamingo head on Arnold’s body. He shows off a pair of Scott Flamingo boots and was pitched the character by Dusty Rhodes. That gives Raven a chance to do his Dusty impression. His first PPV match (Beach Blast) was against Pillman for the WCW Light Heavyweight Championship. Really good match where they were given time and Raven notes he won cleanly because Dusty wanted him to get over strong. DDP told him if this doesn’t get you booked on house shows, nothing will. He was fired months later when Watts came in. He didn’t like little guys and didn’t like chicken shit heels.

-Raven moves to WWF, but they also thought he was too small. They wanted him for his verbal skills and made him Johnny Polo. He says Shane McMahon is Johnny Polo, but he went with it. Vince made him an executive producer of RAW and he filled in on commentary when Lawler had legal issues. He says it was a good gig other than he couldn’t wrestle. We see his WWE Office ID. He hated having to move to Stamford and didn’t want to be at the office from 9-5. He would get the work done in a few hours and told the office he would be at the studio and the studio he would be at the office. That let him go back to bed and not show up until 11 AM.

-Sandman says Raven was a savant when you think about him being a producer for a Vince McMahon show when he was in his early 20s. Raven says he got heat because he became real good friends with Shane McMahon. They would be out partying until 4 AM and Shane would stay at Raven’s house. Raven had a joke where he called Vince, “Vic.” Shane started doing it and the boys saw it as Raven kissing ass, but he could see it was getting him buried. He wanted to be a wrestler and quit the office job where he was making six figures on top of what he was making as on air talent. He also had health insurance which none of the boys had. We see his health insurance card and papers. Wild that he gave up that job just so he could go to ECW. He reads the resignation letter he submitted to Vince and JJ Dillon. This was September of 1994.

-Back to his house as he shows off some more of his tattoos. DDP comes over and they talk about the invention of The Raven character. DDP told him nobody was buying chickenshit heels anymore. He needed to be a tough guy and told Raven his personal look would work. Raven talks about the outfit: concert shirt, Doc Martins with wrestling soles, leather jacket, and ripped jean shorts. It took him all of three minutes. He shows off the Raven gear and says the boots were uncomfortable and made him angry.

-Raven saw ECW on TV and asked DDP to call Paul to get him on the show. Page says he was close enough to Paul to get Raven a shot as Paul was always looking for talent. We get more of the awesome Raven ECW promos. They focus on the Raven promos where he complains about his childhood. Page says he is always the glass half full guy while Raven had times where he had no glass at all.

-Raven says the character is a damaged part of him multiplied by ten. He notes “what about Raven,” is so much him. He knows he was an accident and says his parents should never have been parents. “Birth control in the 60s didn’t work that well.” He says he wasn’t sexually or physically abused. He learned in therapy that neglect is just as dangerous for a kid. We see his hands start to tremor and he says that happens when he gets anxious. The producer asks if he needs to take a break. “No, I don’t need to take a break. I’m not a pussy.” He tells DDP that doing a documentary seemed great, but he doesn’t really like talking about himself. Page says the part you don’t want to talk about is the part people want you to talk about. Truth!

-Raven takes us to Philadelphia and the house he grew up in. He and his sister both say they were four strangers in the house. His mother was so distant that she would call him when she knew he was sleeping and he would call back when he knew she was at work. They have conversations with each other’s voice mail. Ugh!

-His father’s idea of affection was teasing and calling out insecurities. Raven says his dad was a workaholic who slept only four hours. His dad was the senior editor for The National Inquirer, which at the time was the highest paying newspaper in the world. Debby says her dad’s idea of showing love and attention was to hand over the credit card. Raven notes his dad found interest in everything and everyone except him. Raven reads a letter he wrote to his dad about a fight they got into. It’s kind of heart breaking to hear as he is basically begging his dad to just say “I love you.” He says he went into wrestling to get love from perfect strangers.

-ECW: Raven says the character was perfect for the time and we get the theme music (“Come Out and Play” -The Offspring). RVD says he had no idea what grunge was. We see Billy Corgan in ECW and Billy says Paul was using everyone’s music with no permission. They let him get away with it because they liked what he was doing. I know I was introduced to a lot of rock music from ECW that my step-father knew and it made me feel closer to him.

-Raven vs. Dreamer: Tommy says Raven came to ECW as a short term deal to help get him over. Raven came up with the idea of the backstory so there was history when he debuted. He came up with the fat camp story and the fat girl that turned into a Penthouse Pet. Beulah’s an absolute smoke show and I mean that with all respect. Dreamer says without the other, they don’t exist. They bled buckets all over the country. It is by far the greatest rivalry in ECW history and what hooked me as a ECW fan and I only caught the last six or so months of it.

-Tommy talks about the pregnancy angle. Beulah tells Raven she is pregnant and he calls her stupid, but she says it’s not his. The crowd chants for Stevie, so Raven starts beating him up. The crowd even thinks it could be Meanie’s, but it’s Tommy’s. The pay off ends up that Beulah is not pregnant and was cheating on Dreamer with Kimona and we get women making out as the ECW Arena goes crazy. Tommy takes them both because he’s hardcore. Raven credits Tommy for always being down for whatever ideas Raven had and Raven admits they worked great, but some failed spectacularly.

-We got one of those as there is a Gauntlet Match in The Arena with Raven cuffed to a ring post. Dreamer admits he was not good at getting color. Raven says he was known as Tommy Dripper at the time. Raven agrees to give Tommy color that night and in Dreamer’s words, “he went coast to coast, ear to ear.” Raven makes it look like he is using the cuffs to bust Dreamer open, but that lets him hide the blade. Dreamer is bleeding like a stuck pig and Dreamer says people were throwing up in the crowd. Dreamer gets cuffed to the ropes and yeah, he is just pouring blood. Not sure if it was Eddie levels, but it was a lot of blood. Dreamer tells Raven to hit him with the chair and Raven hopes he didn’t hurt him. Dreamer gets stretchered to the back and tells Raven that was a lot and Raven admits it was the first time he cut someone.

-We move to The Chair Shot Heard Round The World. This was Dreamer’s time for revenge and Dreamer and Paul wanted 10 chair shots. Raven said no, it had to be just one. They called Raven a pussy and he said he would take 10 in the back, but only one out there. He knew one would mean more and that was a lesson he was taught in Portland by Piper. Raven gets cuffed to the cage and Dreamer WALLOPS him with a chair shot and the place explodes. They would play that moment like every week in video packages.

-Dreamer talks about how they weren’t tested and people were bleeding all over the place. He says it is scary to think about the things they did. Frank Smith, Raven’s lawyer, calls wrestling the Wild West as we see all the crazy shit done in ECW. Raven says there were no safety standards at the time and ECW was forced to have a doctor at ring side. Dreamer had a foot surgeon as a roommate and asked him to do it for a couple hundred dollars a week. “We basically had a foot doctor watching over everyone.”

-We see Raven getting his legs stretched to help get range of motion back. He picks up a degree of motion from the last time he was checked. He had one knee replaced and is going to have the other one done. He could use two shoulder replacements, but hasn’t had that done yet and it seems if they could do it, a spinal replacement would be good for him. We see him struggle to tie his hair into a ponytail. He is annoyed with how fat he looks in the mirror.

-Selina says the toughest part about the relationship is worrying if Raven will wake up every morning. She says the shit he has done to his body is horrible and she has to watch him struggle with those things. She talks about the long history of wrestlers passing away and that is something that she worries about on a daily basis. You can hear the fear and worry in her voice.

-We get a run down of people in the business who have passed while showing crazy bumps they took: Scott Hall 1958-2022, Balls Mahoney 1972-2016, New Jack 1963-2021. She recalls Raven complaining about indigestion and it ended up being a full blown heat attack. He doesn’t get in the ring anymore because he has “contraptions in his heart.” So basically same thing HHH has.

-We see a Raven in a cemetery which is kind of creepy. Raven says he is 58 and is really beat up mentally and emotionally. He knows he has brain damage from the chair shots and drugs. He hopes it won’t make him into a nut job when he gets older. He doesn’t want to live life just to be alive so he doesn’t want to be decrepit.

-Tommy Dreamer says they don’t count stitches or burns as he goes over his laundry list of injuries. He ends with noting his testicle was ruptured by a Jerry Lawler kendo shot. I remember watching that when it aired and the scream from Dreamer was unlike anything I ever heard from a wrestler. They include it here and I can’t imagine the pain. He would have to get the testicle drained.

-Raven talk about taking chair shots to the head and says the worst part now is the sleep disorder. He goes to bed and will wake up more tired than he was before he went to sleep. He loses his ability to find the right word.

-RVD talks about his history of concussions and how for the better part of two years he saw double. DDP says he has knocked out a bunch of people and been knocked out a bunch of times. He would look for the red light and that would remind him they were live. “Shit gets snug out there.”

-Dreamer notes how ECW fans would boo if you put your hands up to block chair shots. He has a lot of regrets now for telling guys to break a chair over his head. We see a run of unprotected head shots and yeah, I am cool with them being gone from WWE. They aren’t needed and if the guys can avoid brain damage, great. Sandman struggles to say CTE and says he will donate his brain. Yeah, I have to assume he has CTE from all the abuse he has taken over the years.

-Raven is at an MLW show and is working with some of the guys and Court Bauer. Hey, it’s Jacob Fatu and he gets attacked making his entrance by Raven and The Calling. Raven thanks Jacob once cameras stop rolling. We continue with MLW as we get to Battle Riot and The Calling all coming in at once. Raven just sits back in the corner and soaks in the ECW chants.

-Tommy Dreamer notes how fans didn’t chant for WWF or WCW. He notes Philadelphia is a hardcore town and Meanie doesn’t think it would have worked any other place. We get Flyers highlights and let me clear my throat: HAVE YOU EVEN SEEN THE FLYERS WIN THE CUP? Sandman says they are just a little bit more nuts in Philly and says the fans showed fans today what to do. He calls them a cult. “We were changing wrestling and they were changing fandom.”

-Raven calls ECW the Rocky Horror Picture Show on steroids and possibly heroin too. Dreamer talks about the first weapons match where they asked fans to bring weapons. RVD talks about one of the best highs was getting the crowd to chant “holy shit,” and the worst was “you fucked up.” He mentions Bigelow throwing Spike into the crowd and trusting them to catch him. The fans in ECW loved being part of the show and didn’t care if they were kicked or set on fire. “You can’t get away with that today.” Sandman says the fans partied with them after the show at the hotels and that happened every weekend.

-Sandman talks about Paul saying he just talked to Macaulay Culkin and Sandman knows it’s bullshit. He wants Culkin to be Sandman’s son in a story with Raven. Sandman says to use his real son and Paul agrees. Sandman goes off of Paul for never being able to tell the truth.

-Raven goes over The Sandman angle and says it was Paul’s idea. It started with taking his wife and then turning his son against him. Sandman just thought of how you wanted to be the first to do something and there had never been a five year old in the ring so he would go down in history. Not always a good thing to do or be the first at something in wrestling. Just saying!

-Hey, we meet Tyler Fullington and he is awesome because he is wearing an NBA JAM SHIRT FEATURING SIDNEY DEANE AND BILLY HOYLE FROM WHITE MEN CAN’T JUMP! That movie is one of my 10 favorites of all time and really, top 5 of all time. I am watching it later today just because I saw that shirt and I also need to find that shirt and buy it. If there were still Sizzlers near me I would be going there for dinner as well. Tyler was all for being in the ring and on TV. Raven says Paul wanted to do it because he knew people that used kids in custody battles. Raven: “Using a child in a divorce battle is horrible.” Tyler tells Sandman he is a drunk and he worships Raven. Raven says Sandman is a great dad and is only a degenerate on the weekends. Tyler: “I didn’t know what the hell was going on.” He says his dad was always honest and up front with him.

-Raven says ECW was a family atmosphere and the joke was that if you passed the drug test you were fired. Bubba Ray says they were Nirvana, The Sex Pistols, AC/DC and it was sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Corgan says the ECW locker room was wild and there were inappropriate things happening. ECW was what people thought a rock bands dressing room was like. Sandman goes over the various drugs they used and how Somas were killing 30 dudes in a year.

-Raven says it wasn’t the drinking, but the “drugging.” The pain killers took him down a dangerous road. They show some of the crazy bumps and how a lack of health insurance was an issue. Raven became addicted to opiates, but had to be smart because he didn’t want to run out and go through withdraw. Sandman talks about the infamous fanny packs and how they were filled with pills. RVD admits to taking 30 somas a day until Louie passed away. Saturn notes he had six different doctors write his scripts and all they had to do was take a picture with their kid and they would get anything. He calls people today “cunts” because they can’t take pain medicine, so the hospitals won’t give you pain medicine anymore.

-Raven was proud of all the drugs he was able to take and hung his hat on it, which he admits is stupid. He was the dumbest person with a genius IQ. Lodi takes about The deadpool list as it was who they figured would be the next five guys to die. He and Raven were pissed when they weren’t in the top five. We get photos of some of the ECW wrestlers that died at a young age including Eddie Guerrero. Lodi says they would go to funerals high and think the person in the casket wasn’t a good drug addict. Wow!

-Raven started shooting up oxy and Sandman wanted to match him. They stop at a gas station in Indiana and it’s the first day Rhino is riding with them. Fonzie and Guido are also in the car. Sandman shoots an “eighty” and his lips start turning blue in the car. They call 9-1-1 and realized they had a ton of drugs in the car. They stopped at a motel and ditched the drugs while waiting for an ambulance. The ambulance shows up and puts a needle in Sandman’s chest. He wakes up in the ER. Dreamer says this was the first show he ran without Paul Heyman. As they get close to bell time he is missing that car full of guys. The first match ends and Rhino sprints into the building and tells Dreamer he has to talk to him. He starts crying and tells Dreamer that Sandman is dead. Dreamer asks him to confirm that and Rhino says, “kind of.” Sandman bursts through the door in the hospital gown and works the show after being declared dead. Sandman: “Then shot a 40 the next day and loved it.”

-Raven says he went to rehab once and started drinking immediately after because of an emotional break down. He tried to get the responsibility out of his life and just had ECW and partying. He had a break down and could not get out of bed. That is what got him into rehab. He got drunk hours after leaving rehab.

-The longer he lived in The Raven character the more he became a degenerate. He felt he needed to live up to the character, which he notes is ridiculous. He started making people refer to him as Raven. He felt safe with the character because he was always one step ahead and could be angry at the world.

-Raven is eating McDonald’s fries as he starts talking about the infamous Sandman crucifixion angle. It was his idea and he pitched to Sandman, who loved it, and said he could build his own cross. Sandman says Paul knew about it and he did build the cross. We see the video with the WWE watermark in the bottom corner, which I am sure they love seeing. The audience reaction was dead silence. Meanie notes they hopped, skipped, and jumped over that line. It chased off Kurt Angle who was in talks to be a commentator in ECW. People started blasting Raven as he was Jewish and asked why he didn’t use a Jewish Star. “It would roll away.” Sandman says Angle threw a “hissy fit.” Yeah, what an uptight dick to be upset at something like that. Raven was forced to apologize and says it was the most insincere sincere apology. He says the fans didn’t want an apology even if they were offended. They note Vince did it with The Undertaker and Austin. That was a symbol or something. A symbol that looked like cross.

-We get the ECW guys talking about how they birthed the Attitude Era. Jericho backs it up and we see what ECW did and how WWF did similar later. It was more Vince’s response to getting smoked by WCW. RVD notes he felt a bit ripped off and Dreamer says he was pissed as well. Austin stole Sandman’s drinking gimmick and then took Whipwreck’s stunner. Sandman says Austin got to go to Vince before he did so it didn’t bother him. Raven didn’t mind either as imitation is flattery and he just wanted credit for his work. Raven had his fingerprint all over ECW as he brought in The Dudleys. Meanie, Francine, and Beulah.

-Raven loved being able to teach as it was an ego fulfillment. We see him working with talent in Impact/TNA before Against All Odds. He shows up during the show in Atlanta at the famous Center Stage. It’s Moose vs. Callihan in a Raven’s Clockwork Orange House of Fun Match. They cut back to Callihan telling Raven the plans for the match and then seeing it happen. Raven is on commentary for the match. I applaud how they cut back and forth from the match to what both guys had worked out with Raven earlier in the day. It’s like a violent version of Unreal. Raven: “staple to the dick.” Raven and Callihan discuss the fine art of selling a ball shot as apparently guys fall down to fast and need to register it more. Raven meets them after and tells them it was amazing and the pacing was brilliant.

-Next we discuss The Flock. They were bump guys for Raven and he would just sit and not do much. Raven goes over the various people in The Flock and how they all turned on him, but that was the point. He always had a crew of lackeys even in his college days. He was always the ring leader of a group and finds it funny that it followed him into his career. We get a lot of WCW footage out of this section and it was the WCW run where I became a real big fan of The Raven character. I went back to catch the early Raven ECW stuff through tape trading and then DVDs. Lodi admits that if you got a Raven autograph in the mail, he likely signed it for Raven.

-The relationship with Stevie Richards is discussed. It was contentious, but was a great pairing according to Raven. The tension worked! Meanie tells a story of Stevie getting pissed at Raven and jerking on the steering wheel and nearly killing them by going over three lanes of traffic. Raven: “it’s not funny, but it is. Now that we are all safe years later.”

-Dreamer notes you either love or hate Raven. There is no middle ground. Second time we heard someone say that. Jericho calls him arrogant and a little bit of a jerk. Sandman calls him a prick. “A lot of people saw him as a prick.” He had an ego problem. Raven says anyone with an ego issue is insecure and it’s that cut and dry. His dad was funny but always insulted him and it destroyed his selfworth. His solution was to talk about how great he was, thinking people would hear it and say it back which would give him the confirmation he needed.

-He calls his relationship with Heyman as De Niro working with Scorsese. He left though and went to WCW. RVD says he was bummed anytime someone left ECW. He was 100% ECW and thought they could blow up and people would stay. Dreamer would get pissed as well and notes WCW asked him to leave for a lot of money, but Heyman told him the place would go out of business if he left. Poor Dreamer as instead he went down with the ship. Raven gets the “you sold out” chants on his last night in ECW. Dreamer wanted to lose and Raven told Heyman “you know I will be back.” Heyman couldn’t let it happen though as Dreamer needed to win and finally pin Raven. They understand why Paul couldn’t take the chance.

-Raven shows us his copy of the WCW/nWo Revenge N64 game that he was on the cover. I have that game with box, manual and strategy guide. Apparently my N64 and games I have (with boxes and manuals) is worth more money that I had figured. DKOldies offered me $150 for all I have, but research shows a complete Ocarina of Time I have is worth that by itself. I have decisions to make. Back on topic Raven says his buddies think he sucked a dick to get on the cover with Hogan, Goldberg, and Nash. I always assumed it was because the game was big on factions and on the cover they had Hogan (nWo black and white), Nash (nWo black and red), Goldberg (WCW) and Raven (The Flock). He notes he was more famous from WCW and we see the AWESOME MTV TRL ANGLE WHERE HE DECKS DDP WITH A STOP SIGN AND DDTS HIM THROUGH A TABLE. The reaction from Carson and The Foo Fighters is tremendous. That’s how hot WCW was at the time. They were the ones on MTV!

-Jericho follows up and says you need to remember that WCW was bigger than the WWF at this point. He says everyone was drinking and taking ecstasy. DDP says they were gladiators as they would drink, do drugs and then do the shows that night or the next night. RVD knew Raven would party with Saturn and would hear crazy stories about what they would do with women. That leads to a Slip N Slide commercial! Oh man, where is this going? They saw the commercial and bought one from Walmart. They would have a naked women at one end with her legs spread and would wear a strap on on their head (called The Rhino) and would slide into her. I have no words! “We would get a lot of points for that I would imagine.”

-Raven says his friends all grew up, but he got to be Peter Pan. He wanted to live a life of adventure. He says drinking, partying, and doing drugs is a great life. He wanted to break into the Top 10 of WCW and it was him, Booker, Saturn, and Jericho just underneath. He started bitching about his lack of being in there. Jericho notes that Raven got close, but WCW was a tough locker room. Saturn notes WCW was a two class society and they were stuck in the second class.

-Jericho talks about how there was no clear boss. Raven says Bischoff called a meeting and told Raven if he is not happy with the company he can leave. Raven takes him up on the offer, but won’t let him go to WWE. He tells him he can go to ECW and Raven accepts it. We see the return which Raven notes that some call it the biggest pop in company history.

-Raven’s father passes away and it made him free in some way. He says when his dad passed, it finally turned him into an adult. He got over looking for his dad’s affection. He was also popping oxy like crazy and knew he was getting to a point that he might die. He was in a hotel for nine days and had friends there to watch him and help him through the withdraw. He lived through the addiction, but once he quit he was done and wanted no parts of going back.

-He starts seeing an addictionologist once he is clean from drugs. He sees from the notes that he was diagnosed with histrionic personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder. The histrionic one was more interesting to him. It has 5 or more checks you have to meet: 1) Uncomfortable when not the center of attention 2) seductive or provocative behavior 3) shifting and shallow emotions 4) uses appearance to draw attention 5) impressionistic and big speech 5) dramatic or exaggerated emotions 6) considers relationships more intimate than they are. He says he was always guilty of that. His ADD kicks in and he admits he is bored reading about it.

-He debuts in WWE as Raven and he thinks this is his chance to finally get his big run. It doesn’t happen and that destroys him emotionally. It makes him an even bigger egomaniac. Again, I thought he should have been the stalker of Taker’s wife. Jericho says as good as Raven was, Vince never saw anything in him. I will say he made the Hardcore Division worth watching in matches he had with Rhyno and others. Jericho feels Raven thinks a lot like Vince McMahon and is smart to the business, which Vince never saw.

-Dreamer says in WWE when you offer opinions and it’s not your job, they hold it against you. Raven thinks he still had heat from when he was there the first time. That’s all he could think of and then they let him go. He says it broke him and he thought his career was over, but TNA popped up. He got to do cool stuff there and got to leave the business on his own terms. He looks back and knows his career is really successful. It didn’t reach the highs he wanted, but knows he had something to do with that by being an arrogant asshole and the smartest guy in the room.

-Jericho thinks Raven is underrated and I agree. His again called a savant with wrestling. Kevin Sullivan also calls him one of the most underrated performers in the history of the business and says it was a pleasure working with him. He notes Raven’s ideas were often better than the ones he had. The character captivated people and one of the talking heads compares it to the sun and how you not supposed to look at it, but can’t help yourself. Scott D’Amore is upset saying this, but Raven is a creative genius. Shane Douglas talks about being sucked in within five minutes of that first Raven promo in ECW. Bubba calls him one of the smartest guys he has come across in his career. He learned eavesdropping on Raven conversations. Meanie believes he belongs in The Hall of Fame. Dreamer agrees with the Hall of Fame idea and doesn’t know if it will ever happen. My guess is, at best, they wait until he passes and he goes quietly into the Legacy Wing.

-Corgan notes how The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is filled with people who stole from the guy or girl who didn’t get credit. He says Raven is one of those people that were stolen from and doesn’t think he will ever get the credit for it. Raven doesn’t know if he belongs in the Hall of Fame, but knows he was be a crazy rich if he got a nickel for everyone that wore a t-shirt to the ring after he started it. He notes he was never WWF or WCW Champion and was only ever on top at a National level in ECW. He would be happy either way because he is past that point in his life.

-He now just stays at home with his girl and enjoys his life. We see him with his dog again, and the dog is awesome. He admits he wanted to talk wrestling all the time which annoyed people. No wonder he got along with Hall. Well, that and the drugs I assume. He is looking forward to his future. He ends with: “I got a t-shirt, threw up on it on, bought another t-shirt, threw up on that t-shirt, got another t-shirt, scrubbed my balls with it, and released this is not a good t-shirt to buy.” His way of saying, “been there, don’t that.”

-Credits!

-I am not a movie critic and that’s why this isn’t a movie review and more my recap and thoughts as I watch the first time. Raven is still a fascinating character and I enjoyed this greatly. There were times it started being shifting to an ECW documentary as we had stories about Sandman and others, but you need to set the picture of ECW to tell Raven’s story. Heyman being involved would have been amazing, but we know why that didn’t happen. I was wondering if they were going to mention the mole in ECW story with Gordon, but that never came up. The WCW stuff seemed rushed as he did get to a certain level and was used much better there than ever in the WWF. His US Title win was as big deal to me as a fan even if I knew he was getting smoked by Goldberg the next night. He did give Goldberg one of the best matches of his career. The TNA stuff was also rushed which is a shame because he was OVER when he debuted and that early match with Jarrett was a big deal. They screwed it up with Jarrett going over, but it’s Jarrett so what can you do. Raven winning the NWA Title in TNA was also a big deal to me as a fan.

-Raven obviously has nothing to hide and is very open about his drug use. It’s similar to what I hear from Eminem in interviews and as a fan of both, I am happy they are sober and in good places. Some of the stories are ones you have heard before as Raven has done shoot interviews over the years. He is a great storyteller and you can see that his mind works differently than others.

-Like with a lot of these wrestling documentaries, I am noticing a pattern with wrestlers looking for the love and approval of their fathers. Raven’s troubled childhood is different than other stories we here. It wasn’t a verbal or physical abuse. It was emotional neglect as his parents really didn’t want to be parents. They met their children’s physical needs, but Raven never got the love he felt he needed. The scene where he reads the letter he wrote to his dad begging for him to say “I love you,” is the one that will stay with me.

-The talking heads were great and I enjoyed Sandman the most as he had nothing to hide. As noted, this really missed having Heyman. Bischoff would have been interesting to have as well just for his side of the Raven firing story as I believe there was more to it than what was mentioned here. I thought others threatened to walk with Raven, but only Raven took up the offer. Jericho was an interesting choice to get as far as someone from AEW. He was fine, but I think Taz would have fit in as a talking head as he had more ECW run than Jericho. With that said, Jericho was there with Raven in ECW, WCW, and WWF so I can see why he was used. Dreamer was a must and I kind of wanted more on the Dreamer/Raven feud, but at that’s just me.

-This is definitely worth the two hours to watch, but again, I’m in the bag for the Raven character and I am in the bag for wrestling documentaries. Someone else out there can give you a film review about pacing and whatnot. If you are a fan of Raven you should enjoy this and if you are just a fan of wrestling you should enjoy this. Non wrestling fans it could be hit or miss pending their interests. For me, it was a fascinating look at a wrestling character that I love. Thanks for reading!