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I thought I'd start a thread about Raven. He's had a really long, interesting career. - The son of the EIC of the National Enquirer, and a former marine. Starts out in Memphis. Lawler treats him less than stellar, and Raven leaves after losing a match where had we won, he'd get a date with a young Missy Hyatt. -Ends up in Vancouver, where he gets over, much to the annoyance of Al Tomko, who wants to push his son. Raven claims Al put up a girl to claiming he raped her. After skipping Canada on the advice of his father, and the charges get dropped. He finishes up there and moves to Portland. -Portland, he does the Roddy Piper thing in the NWA, where he's a top heel and a color commentator. This is where starts abusing coke hard, getting so hooked that upon hearing his coke dealer has been popped, him and a friend go to the house to scrounge up any coke they can find.Raven ends up snorting a chunk of sheet rock, mistaking it for coke. Raven takes this as a wakeup call of sorts, and gives his notice. They run an angle where hes getting married to his valet. A fan thinking the wedding is real, goes to bed with him. The wedding angle ends up with him being left at the altar when it she finds out he's been sleeping around. Hilarious. - He signs with WCW, as Scotty Flamingo. He beats Pillman for the Light Heavyweight title in a really good match, that in my opinion is a bit slept on. Raven claims the booker told him he was destined to be the next Ric Flair. I call BS here, but I also wouldn't be surprised if he was promised great things, because its WCW. He gets shut out after losing the belt to Brad Armstrong and eventually leaves because, like a lot of the roster, he hates Bill Watts. - Back in Memphis, still Scotty Flamingo. He wins the tag belts with Brian Christopher, and sweet Jesus ate they obnoxious. Here he is rapping in a promo on Lawler https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-Rvu-C-RxI - Signs with WWE as Johnny Polo. This is where poo poo starts to really change. Raven claims that he was on the booking team and Vince wanted to make him part of his inner circle. Two things got in the way: One, what he really wanted was to be wrestling, but Vince didn't see it that way. And two, Raven and Shane are partying all the time and Vince isn't cool with it. The wrestling debate eventually ends with Raven surprising Vince and quitting -ECW. The Raven character cones to him while watching Point Break and thinking the idea of a counter culture cult leader would work. He was right, Raven later describes this as the most creatively fulfilling period of his career. He also cones up with the concept of the Dudleys being a huge hosed up family, and does an angle that nearly gets Paul Heyman beat up by Kurt Angle: the crucifixion of the Sandman (Sandman actually made the cross in his garage). Unfortunately, its also a period where his substance abuse is out of control.This time its opiates/somas to the point where he needs rehab. Heyman has Stevie lose the belt on his behalf, unsure if Raven will be back. When he does return, Heyman issues him an ultimatum of sorts: if you want to be ECW champion again, it has to be in a barbed wire match. Raven does it. Eventually, after dropping the belt to Terry Funk at Barely Legal, he gives notice; he's headed back to Georgia. -IMO, Raven, had it not been for the nWo basically overrunning everything creatively, could have been the top heel for WCW. WCW audiences hated him. The Flock angle/gimmick was perfectly run. It got Saturn, Kanyon and Kidman over, it made Raven reviled, and a Raven vs Sting feud would have been fun, IMO. As is, he carried Goldberg to his 2nd best WCW match only trailing DDP at Halloween Havoc. Speaking of Kanyon, I have to tell this story. As most of you know, Chris was gay. Only a handful of people knew: Raven was one, Father Jim Mitchell was another. Jim gets a phone call from Chris asking a favor. At this point, Jim knows about Chris' sexuality. He explains that while moving, a briefcase that had some of Chris' sex toys fell off of the roof of his car, and basically exploded. Chris' brothers are VERY homphobic, so Kanyon panics and says "It must be that pervert Jim Mitchell's stuff! I bet he was ribbing me". So Jim takes the rap so that Chris can stay in the closet. Raven eventually grows very unhappy in WCW. Thetes the aborted feud with Piper. The constant jobbing despite being super over.He's struggling with alcoholism, WCW is getting harder to work for. Bischoff calls a meeting saying that anybody who wants out can have their release, the lawyer is right outside the door. Raven leaves, says "See ya". And he's done with the company. He later mentions that he expected Konnan to be right behind him. - Back in ECW. His return is a huge pop. Also the idea of Tommy having to share his championship with a man who has tormented him for years is  .But its not a good run, mostly. Raven almost dies in rehab. On two separate occasions he does a run in and eats poo poo getting into the ring. Eventually he and Paul agree that he'll put some folks over on the way out. ECW is dying, and not even the greatest ECW champ ever can save them. - WWE. Raven almost immediately knows hes made a mistake when he overhears Vince yell "Who the gently caress hired Raven" as Jim Ross had brokered the deal. There's a few things worth noting. Firstly up until Mick Foley and Edge drat near kill each other at Wrestlemania, his match with Rhyno at Backlash is probably the best hardcore title match ever. Secondly, Raven accidentally almost kills another WM when he runs over an important cord with a golf cart against Kane and Big Show. There's the aborted feud with Eddie Guerrero. The proposed feud with Steve Austin. The Ravens deadly sins angle where Raven and Tommy would fight for the soul of Hurricane Helms. They could have used him but didn't. WWE still does this. TNA: Raven is broiling hot to begin with, doing a belt theft angle with Jeff Jarrett. Raven is in a spot to win the strap, but he was on a short-term deal, so when the title match comes, JJ puts a contract in front of him. Its implied that had Raven signed he'd have won. However, according to Raven, he had recently gotten concussed, and didn't feel comfortable signing with literal brain damage. The match is a mess with half the roster running in. JJ retains despite being DDT'd while handcuffed. Raven does eventually win the NWA Heavyweight title. He later admits to crying upon being told he'd be winning. His reign is poorly timed, they panic and put the belt back on JJ off TV. He also has a fun if not sloppy and overhyped feud with CM Punk in ROH. Punk rages against Raven for squandering his talent with substance abuse. Hope you all enjoyed this. El Gallinero Gros fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Aug 31, 2020 |
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Aug 31, 2020 20:10
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forkboy84 posted:I always liked the story of ROH were going to pay Raven to lose his hair in a hair vs hair match during the CM Punk feud, because he wanted to cut it anyway & hey, payday. But TNA decided "oh wait, you should give us that match" so ROH lost the stip they'd advertised & TNA ended up having him lose to Shane Douglas in 2003 & Jim Mitchell managed to gently caress up the shaving so bad that Raven basically got scalped & was a bloody mess from a loving haircut. TNA did a lot of petty poo poo via a vis their relationship with ROH.
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Aug 31, 2020 22:14
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CombineThresher posted:I loved Raven as a wrestler and character in WCW, and for a while there he had a ton of crowd heat; fans used to just melt down booing the guy. I also think Paul E. made a good point that Raven's character had all the makings of a babyface, but Raven played it so whiny that crowds hated him. Even ECW heel fans hated him during his first run there. It's really impressive. He also has a really good match with Jaz Hatashi, with a really cool reversal for a finish
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Sep 1, 2020 02:59
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CombineThresher posted:Was he still using then? One of the few things he recalls from his oxy/heroin years is that it took him forever to poo poo because of all the codeine in his system. When you're trying to kick, the body sometimes needs coaxing because it's become used to constipation
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Sep 1, 2020 14:53
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