Raven Defends His Use Of the DDT As A Finish, Says He ‘Did It Right’

In an interview with Fightful, Raven spoke about his use of the DDT as a finish and why he thinks he did it better than most. Here are highlights:

On Rhyno spearing a shopping cart at WWE Backlash 2001: “I wanted to use a shopping cart. I was gonna pick it up and have him come between me and the ring, between the second and third rope like he’s coming to grab me and I was gonna smash him in the head. Except, then, I realize I couldn’t pick the thing up over my head because it was too clumsy and I was gonna look stupid. So I said, ‘Why don’t we switch it, Rhino? You pick it up, and I’ll feed you through the second and third rope. Bang me in the head, we’ll throw it in the ring.’ Then I think he said, ‘Let’s have you drop toe hold me on it.’ I don’t know if that came before or after. He comes up with great ideas. He goes, ‘Let me go to Gore you and you move, and I’ll go into the shopping cart.’ I’m like, ‘You can’t fit in there.’ I still don’t know how he fit in there. It’s a miracle. I thought for sure he was gonna hit it and just bounce back because his shoulders weren’t going to fit inside it. But he squished himself in there and did it. I loved that spot, man.”

On using the DDT: “Well, I did it right and not lazy. There’s a lot of [times] taking it lazy and just dropping. But when I do it right, the ones that look the best, when I go to my back, I kick my legs up straight so that they’re at a 90 degree angle with my hips. So it looks more sudden. Plus, I try to drop as quick as I can, too. It’s the suddenness that makes it look so good. A lot of guys, they just fall back. When I’m being lazy, my legs don’t go straight up. When I’m being lazy, they land like everybody else’s. But when I’m doing it right, I think it looks pretty cool and that’s why I chose it. I know a lot of guys use it as a high spot, but I was like, ‘When I do it, I’m gonna do it so it looks like a finish and make it a finish,’ and you can do it to anybody. That’s part of having a finish, you gotta be able to give it to anybody. [Chris] Candido used to powerbomb guys off the top rope —which, first of all, is incredibly dangerous, but secondly, you can’t do it but about five people back then because nobody was going to take it.”