LOOKING AT THE PRIME OF RAVEN'S CAREER AND THE DRIVING FORCES BEHIND IT
By Winter Trabex on 4/1/2009 7:22 PM
During 1994, Stevie Richards had worked for ECW primarily as a jobber. He
worked alongside other such names as Dino Sendoff, Don E. Allen, Chris Kanyon,
Ray Odyssey and Chad Austin. However, late in the year of 1994- December 20th
to be exact- something changed for Stevie Richards.
He started calling himself Stevie Polo, Stevie Flamingo and Stevie the Body.
Each week, he couldn't decide which name he wanted to settle on. This was the
first time in ECW that Stevie Richards had showed any
character, and it was also the first time he got talked about for any length
of time by Joey Styles. The first time Richards used this gimmick, he defeated
another jobber in a match. Then the next week he defeated JT Smith in what
appeared to be an upset- despite the fact that Smith hadn't won a whole lot of
matches in 1994. During the first week of 1995, however, Stevie Richards was
defeated by Tommy Dreamer. And so,
Richards promised to bring out Johnny Polo to clear up the mess next week.
When the week came around, though, Dreamer was working in Japan and Richards
had to satisfy himself by taking on the Shah of ECW, Hack Myers.
Richards referred to Raven as "my man" and made it seem like Richards was in
control of Raven. When Raven came out to an Offspring song and got Joey
Styles' face, however, the situation seemed very reversed.
Instantaneously, the reason for Stevie Richards doing an impersonation gimmick
became clear: he was obsessed with Raven and would do whatever Raven wanted
him to do. Not only was this the beginning of the strange relationship between
Richards and Raven, it was also the beginning of the years-long Tommy
Dreamer/Raven feud, as it was Dreamer's victory over Richards that prompted
Raven to join ECW.
What I really want to talk about, though, is Raven's demeanor during his ECW
debut. He always came across as a putz to me in his WWF work. He wasn't the
eloquent, cerebral guy that I had always known from watching his work with the
Flock in WCW and with the Gathering in TNA. Instead, he seemed like a twisted
male version of Cyndi Lauper. I always imagined him saying, "And guys just
wanna have fun...that's why I'm a drug addict."
When he walked out in ECW, he seemed even more twisted. Joey Styles said that
Raven had been through some kind of traumatic experience, but what didn't seem
to understand at the time is that Raven was merely expanding on the
personality that was already inside him. His expression and the way he went
about things foreshadows everything else that happened during his career. He
would use guys that weren't going
anywhere in wrestling to do his bidding and then toss them aside when it
pleased him to do so. He would inflict brutal injuries in hardcore matches
simply because he liked it.
And, most importantly, he had no regard for his own body. Later, it was
revealed that he enjoyed pain,
and I wonder if that mentality isn't rooted in the fact that he said his
parents abused him. After all, if the only treatment he received from his
parents was abuse, he could confuse love with brutality.
Then would come the blood, the torment and the agony. Then would come the
injuries that derailed Raven's plans to wrestle into his fifties the same way
Terry Funk had. It doesn't take a lot of perusal through Raven's career to
realize that he's always enjoyed matches that hurt a great deal. Now, after a
career of beating people other and getting beaten down himself, the Raven,
still sitting on the bust of Pallas
above Paul Heyman's chamber door, must be enjoying himself immensely.
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