ECW legend Raven explains how he became Raven.
Former two-time ECW World Champion Raven was a recent guest on the INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet podcast. During the conversation, he revealed how he came up with his iconic name and also explained how he decided the other aspects of his character.
“I was watching The Crow for inspiration, and the character’s name was Eric Draven. I go, ‘Draven. Raven. Quote The Raven. Nevermore.’ All right, I got a name and a catchphrase. Boom, now I need an outfit. I put the outfit together in like two minutes, because it wasn’t hard to figure out. Then I came up with the idea of a concert t-shirt, because I’m a big believer in ring jackets. You gotta have a bunch of ring jackets, because to be a star, you gotta look like a star.
Raven Had To Get An Anti-Star Look
“But Raven’s character wouldn’t care about looking like a star. I had to get an anti-star look, that still was a star, made me look like a star. So I figured with the concert shirts, I’d have a different shirt every day. So every match I could have a variety without having to change my jacket. Plus, I had no chest. I always wanted to be a bodybuilder, but I never had the genetics for it. So I had a thick waist, no abs, flat chest but I had big arms and shoulders, at the time, until injuries took their toll, but that’s a long story.
“So I figured I would wear a concert t-shirt with sleeves cut off, show off the arms. You want to accentuate your strengths and hide your weaknesses. And I hid my weaknesses. And another weird thing about that is I had really good legs, like really good thighs, but I had such a thick waist that it took away from it, but my thighs were really good. But for the look I needed to cover them, because I would have wore short shorts, I would have looked like Steve Richards. So sometimes you have to pick one or the other, you know what I mean. But it’s such a unique thing, trying to get the most out of everything you can with the least amount of effort,” Raven said.
He Also Revealed Which Bands He Listened To For Creating His Character
“Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, but also listen to a lot of black funk from the 70s too. That was always one of my favorites. I find that once you reach 40 years old, 40 to 50, you stop listening to current music, and you start listening to the stuff you listen to when you’re 10 or 12. So I went back to that, and I listened to a lot of the O’Jays and The Spinners,” Raven said.
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