Raven Recalls Hardcore Title Match at WrestleMania 17 Nearly Cutting Off the Power

During a recent interview with Insight With Chris Van Vliet, former WWE, WCW, and ECW star Raven discussed his career and more. Raven also recalled his wild Hardcore Title Triple Threat Match against Kane and the Big Show at WrestleMania 17 in 2001.

According to Raven, the hardcore antics and bumps nearly cut out the power for the event. Below are some highlights from Insight:

Raven on How They Nearly Cut the Power Out at WrestleMania 17

“That’s true. I’m driving the golf cart, and Show’s choking me. I didn’t expect Show to be choking me, so I wanted to swerve a little bunch because I didn’t want to just drive straight, because we’re supposed to drive all the way around the Astrodome, make a full 360-degree drive. And that was my favorite spot of the match, and I totally ruined it because there was a fence, a chain link fence from ceiling to ground, and the sidewalk dropped off on the other side of the chain. So I went to bounce off the chain with the car, figuring I bounce off and swerve back on, and the wheel just went off the edge and just died right there. The car wouldn’t move, you know, to try the golf car wouldn’t move because the wheel was off the road, and so I tried to get it back on, and Show is going ‘No, no, leave it. Leave it.’ I’m like, I want to go. Kane’s going to chase us in the other golf cart. It’s going to be so cool. So then I just ran out in the traffic and got run over by Kane.”

On How He Likely Would’ve Been Fired Over It

“Yeah, but I had do something to make in my mind to make up for the spot that I screwed up. But when I found out after the show, one of the production guys grabbed a hold of me, and he said, ‘You know you came within millimeters of cutting off the power to the entire show. You landed right on the wire that runs the power to the show, if you would have cut through, you would have killed power to the entire event.’ That would have got me so much heat, I would have definitely been fired for that.”

On His Total Hardcore Title Wins

“39, they only give me credit for 27 though.”

On Where the Extra 12 Came From

“I don’t know. At some point, I go, Yeah, I wonder how many of these I’ve won. And so I counted back and then I counted forward after that, I got 39. But they get 27 so, yeah, but then a lot of times it would change hands three or four times in the night.”

The wild brawl saw Kane win the WWE Hardcore Title from Raven.