Raven WCW

Prior to his arrival in WCW, Raven made his name in the hallowed halls of the ECW Arena revolutionizing the wrestling industry with epic feuds between himself and The Sandman along with Tommy Dreamer. His feud with Dreamer was legendary in its scope and length, culminating with Raven finally losing to Dreamer at an ECW television taping. Utilizing a bevy of wrestlers, Raven managed to create his own “Nest” stable (which also included one Cactus Jack) in ECW and many of the concepts would follow him to WCW. Raven was a key acquisition by WCW at this time as he had long been the ECW Heavyweight Champion and was a tenured face of that extreme organization.

The Debut and Start
June 30th, 1997. Just a scant 19 days after his final match for ECW (a loss to Chris Candido in Scranton, PA), Raven would debut live on WCW’s Monday Nitro. With a multitude of similarities to the nWo’s initial arrival, Raven would be seen sitting in the crowd but by the end of the evening his impact would be immediate albeit shortlived. As a brawl broke out, Raven jumped the railing too, and Raven would potentially add a unique element to the surging WCW vs. nWo feud (which sadly never came to be).

As the weeks continued, we saw Stevie Richards debut alongside Raven and act as Raven’s unofficial agent including talking with WCW’s JJ Dillon about signing a contract to make Raven an official member of the WCW roster. A great build started with Raven constantly abusing Stevie physically and verbally with the aggression mounting each week and fans waiting to see when Stevie would finally stand up for himself.

July 22nd: Stevie & JJ Dillon present a contract to Raven

August 4th: Stevie Richards tries to get Raven to sign a contract

Stevie not only stood up for himself on August 4th but set into motion Raven’s debut match at Clash of the Champions. Raven and Stevie would start to escalate including Raven finally entering the ring (to a big crowd reaction) on August 17th to DDT Stevie before their match up on Clash of the Champions.

Their complex relationship would continue well into September, including Raven going face to face with Randy Savage on the September 22nd Nitro only to DDT Richards yet again.

September 22nd: Raven enters the ring and DDTs Stevie Richards

By October, the eventually christened Flock would start to grow in early October as Stevie started to drift away from Raven at this point. Another ECW alumnus in Perry Saturn would join with Raven along with Sick Boy. By October 13th, The Flock had grown and also featured a generic highflying Billy Kidman joining the group a week after Raven and Saturn were shown in the crowd watching him.

October 13th: Billy Kidman joins The Flock on Nitro

One of Raven’s earliest and biggest feuds was actually with Scotty Riggs throughout October and into November. Raven would debut his “Raven’s Rules” making his matches standout as all of them were wrestled under no DQ rules (an extreme variance compared to most of the WCW in-ring product at the time) and included Raven both recruiting Riggs to join The Flock as well as taking his eye out with one of Raven’s unique spots: a drop toehold into an open steel chair in the middle of the ring. Also Van Hammer would debut with The Flock during this feud too.

As the feud continued into the middle of November, Raven continued to try and entice Riggs to join the group while refusing to go 1 on 1 usually letting his crew members such as Saturn who was the TV Champion by then. By this point we also started seeing more of an ECW influence as Riggs would dive onto The Flock well into the crowd on top of the hardcore styling of Raven’s individual matches. At the World War 3 pay per view, Raven would finally take on Scotty Riggs and take Riggs into The Flock.

Raven Becomes Part of WCW and Starts to Impact the Landscape
As of the November 24th, 1997 Nitro Raven had been given a 24 hour deadline to sign a contract to be part of the WCW roster. Raven’s signing of the contract did not preclude Raven to further disassociate himself from the standards of most of the rest of the roster as Raven demanded he’d still wrestle who he wanted when he wanted and under his own rules.

Almost immediately Raven and Chris Benoit started a very heated feud with Raven refusing, again, to face Benoit 1-1 and instead supplanting himself with various Flock members including the newest member in Scotty Riggs. This feud would quickly escalate and start showcasing Benoit, Raven, Saturn, Dean Malenko, and later on Diamond Dallas Page in one of the most memorable feuds of the WCW era from 1997-1999.

At this point Lodi, the sign bearer would join The Flock as Raven and Benoit continued to butt heads in the ring. Benoit would finally get his hands on Raven in a No DQ match at WCW/nWo Souled Out on January 24th, 1998 which would eventually lead to an ending where Raven passed out in Benoit’s Crippler Crossface while ‘smiling’ at the pain he was enduring.

As WCW debuted its new Thunder show on Thursdays, Raven and Benoit soon reignited their hot rivalry on February 12th. Diamond Dallas Page would make the save for Benoit as The Flock ambushed Benoit after the match which would quickly result in a memorable triangle match as Benoit railed against DDP’s help.

February 12th: Raven takes on Chris Benoit

The February 23rd episode of Nitro featured The Flock again taking out Benoit leading to a wild brawl between Raven, Benoit, and DDP that would start to sow the seeds for a pay per view match down the road. Raven’s WCW theme would debut on March 5th as Raven took on Diamond Dallas Page. Their brief match would again feature a wild brawl between all three combatants. This would also coin the term, “Evenflow” for Raven’s DDT finishing move.

March 5th: Raven takes on Diamond Dallas Page

After losing out on the United States Title at the Uncensored pay per view the night before, Raven would again challenge Benoit to a match on Monday Nitro the night after. Raven and DDP continued their clashing into the start of April, constantly battling over the United States Title.

Raven and DDP would aim to settle the score at Spring Stampede including a memorable appearance on MTV with Raven taking out DDP on camera. Raven would finally secure his first ever title victory by beating DDP with the help of the newest Flock member in Horace Hogan’s debut at Spring Stampede only to lose the US Title the very next night to a meteoric Bill Golberg on Monday Nitro.

Perry Saturn starts The Flock’s dissolving
By late April, Raven started blaming The Flock and especially Perry Saturn for his issues and losing the US Title to Bill Goldberg. As Raven and DDP were culminating their feud, Raven and Perry Saturn started butting heads and began to have friction.

April 28th: Raven shows DDP a video promo

During this era, Chris Kanyon started getting involved by running in and ambushing The Flock at various opportune times including the video above where he takes out Kidman. This was well after Raven had DDT’d Kanyon and challenged Kanyon to join The Flock (a test Kanyon, then known as Mortis, failed).

This entire feud would memorably feature Raven demanding a riot squad (along with The Flock) joining him wherever he went on Nitro and Thunder. Raven would challenge DDP to a Bowery Death Match at Slamboree 1998. The angle would memorably feature Kanyon suddenly ambushing Raven while unmasking as a riot squad member during an episode of WCW Thunder just prior to Slamboree.

May 15th: Raven calls out DDP and attacks him with the bullrope

After a memorable Slamboree match that included a recreation of the ECW Chairshot Heard ‘Round the World moment, Raven would get pissed off at the lack of The Flock protecting him and would start to call out Chris Kanyon who was ambushing Raven and The Flock at all times. Saturn also starts to insinuate he wants to go separate ways from Raven and starts laying the groundwork for The Flock to disband.

March 21st: Raven calls out Saturn and Kanyon strikes again

At Great American Bash, everything continued to build as Kanyon took on Saturn. After Kanyon defeated Saturn, Raven reversed the antics of what had been happening for weeks and months as he took out Kanyon with a DDT then berated and dressed down Saturn on the mic for losing. The dueling feuds continued to intertwine at Bash at the Beach 1998 when Raven, fed up with Saturn, agreed to wrestle him. The end of the pay per view match saw Kanyon save Raven from being put through a table by Saturn only to eventually give him the Flatliner on a steel chair in the ring.

As August rolled around, Raven’s anger and rage at The Flock began to grow including taking on Flock members such as Horace Hogan and berating his other members due to Saturn’s bolting from the group and no longer being by Raven’s side. Saturn would ambush Raven and allow Horace a win on the August 10th Nitro after Horace cost Raven the match at Road Wild against Saturn. The very next week, Horace would take out his own frustration at being a flunky to Raven to a good crowd response too. In a great twist, Raven tries to win Saturn back by anointing him his own tag partner to take on Horace and Kanyon later in the night.

The end of the tag match showcases Raven’s anger at The Flock and desire to reunite himself with Saturn as he DDTs both Kidman and Horace after the match. By early September, Saturn agrees to put himself in a position with Raven challenging Raven to break up The Flock in their Fall Brawl pay per view match after becoming Lodi’s lackey in a loss. The feud continues to get even more complex as Kanyon has sided himself with Raven at this point and Saturn gets his fingers broken as Raven utilizes more and more elements from his ECW feud with Tommy Dreamer.

September 12th: Raven and Kanyon take on Saturn and Lodi

Their Fall Brawl battle was one of the more memorable matches as Raven and Saturn managed to turn an initially disinterested crowd into one that was raging hot by the end of it.

September 13th: The ending to the Fall Brawl Match

Raven Refuses to Wrestle and the Tag Warfares
After the disbanding of The Flock, Raven started to get depressed and lost the will to wrestle against any opponent as October rolled into the picture. Kanyon would try his best to cheer Raven up and try to get him to enter the squared circle again but was often struggling and failing. Raven would briefly challenge Chris Jericho for the TV Title but lost a couple matches to him on Nitro and at Halloween Havoc.

Due to Raven’s depression, WCW started to air vignettes of Kanyon and Raven at Raven’s home as well as going shopping with Kanyon trying to cheer Raven up from losing The Flock and get over his recent losing streak as well. Many fans loved these skits and find them some of the most memorable part of Raven’s entire tenure in WCW.

December 3rd: Raven and Kanyon take on Chris Benoit and Steve McMichael

February 11th: Kanyon visits Raven at his home

Throughout February, Raven would start up a hardcore feud with Hak (ECW’s Sandman) and Bam Bam Bigelow (another facet in ECW for a while). This also featured Chasity, yet another female coming over from ECW as Hak and Chasity were both featured in the home skits with Raven and Kanyon.

By late March the tag scene started to take shape with Raven demanding Tag Title matches including facing Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko 1 on 2 on the March 22nd Monday Nitro. A high point was Saturn suddenly coming out for Raven’s sake (tying back into their deep friendship) and taking over as Raven’s partner in the initial handicap match.

The feud would continue into early April as Raven and Saturn’s new team up would roll on with the past history of Benoit/Raven and Kidman/Raven/Saturn slowly starting to mesh together. The history helped add another layer to the budding tag feud and was briefly WCW’s answer to the Hardys/Edge & Christian/Dudleys stuff that was going on over in the WWE.

By Spring Stampede, the feud was red hot as Benoit and Malenko would defeat Raven and Saturn thanks to the help of longtime Horseman Arn Anderson. The constant battles from Nitros and Thunders made for a lot of fun matches and subsequent brawls at the end. That would lead to one of the best matches WCW put out on pay per view in 1999 at Slamboree as Raven and Saturn won the Tag Titles over Benoit & Malenko and Kidman & Rey Mysterio Jr.

The End of the Raven Run and Final Thoughts
Saturn would lose the Tag Titles after Raven got ambushed on the May 31st episode of Monday Nitro as DDP and Bam Bam Bigelow would take the belts (then form The Triad with Kanyon).

After this point, Raven mainly hung around with Vampiro and the Insane Clown Posse until he suddenly quit after Eric Bischoff offered a release to any unsatisfied wrestler in the company in August. Raven would take him up on his offer and appear back in ECW very shortly after.

To his credit, Raven managed to crunch in roughly 2 & 1/2 years many memorable feuds and moments that helped define the WCW era during 1997, 1998, and into 1999. Raven is remembered for his ECW run and parts of his WCW tenure but it’s worth remembering how solid his overall WCW run was from his entrance with Stevie Richards until his brief Tag Title feud in 1999.