Raven Addresses Health Situation, Recalls Wild WrestleMania Story, Infamous ECW Crucifix Angle

Raven joined Chris Van Vliet on the latest episode of INSIGHT for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling.

The following are some highlights.

How would you say your overall health is right now?

“It’s good. I mean, I got the early onset Parkinson’s, which I’m of the mind to say that I don’t have it. But it’s why I have the tremor, and that’s what they think it is. There’s no 100% proof tests, so I didn’t [get tested]. The test they give to prove it only proves it like 90% and there’s a lot of false positives and negatives in it. So there’s no reason, because he said he would treat me the same way, which is nothing as of now, because nothing’s bad enough, although my tremor is really bad right now.”

You’re not on any sort of medication?

“No, no. So there’s no reason. So I’m just going to declare that I’m not, that I don’t have early onset Parkinson’s and convince myself that I don’t, because I’ve had it for like 8 to 10 years, and all this is a tremor so far.”

What causes this?

“They don’t know. I haven’t put enough study into the diagnosis. Usually I figure out, read the doctor’s notes and all that. But I’d rather just play along. I say I have it, but I’m convinced I don’t. That it’s just a tremor, and I figure mind over matter. Hopefully it’ll stay just a tremor, as it has all these years.”

And you think it’s tied to the way you wrestled?

“Yeah, as I’m saying, I think it’s chair shots to the head. It’s like Ali swore that he didn’t have Parkinson’s, and it was just all the shots he took to the head. That’s what I like to think it is, that and all the drugs. I’m not proud. I used to be proud of my drug abuse, my ability to handle drugs. Now, I’m just embarrassed by it.”

Are you sober now?

“I’ve been sober for years.”

So what was the story behind the chair shot heard around the world?

“I had beaten up Dreamer so many times that they needed to get some revenge on me, and to give the people something. You had to give them something to hope in their babyface and give them something to look like it was over the feud. I forget exactly what led up to the chair shot, but when we got there, Paul is like, ‘I’m gonna have Tommy hit you 10 times with the chair.’ I’m like, ‘No, you gotta hit me once. It’ll mean so much more.’ He goes, ‘No, 10 times. You got to take it 10 times.’ I’m like, ‘No, I’m not going to do it, Paul.’ He goes, ‘What are you scared?’ And I’m like, ‘No, I’ll take nine chair shots back here, but I’m only taking one out there, because it’ll mean more if you hit me with a bunch of them.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, but Axl Rotten is hitting three chair shots in his match, and New Jack’s hitting five in his.’ I’m like, it doesn’t matter. This is something Roddy Piper taught me, doesn’t matter what happens in anybody else’s match, as long as they believe in your stuff. So I said, ‘I’m just taking one.’ He finally goes, ‘All right, I trust you.’ So if Dreamer gave me the one shot and it’s remembered. Imagine if there was five more coming after it, it wouldn’t have meant anything.”

Did you think the crucifixion angle was too controversial?

“I didn’t think it was pushing the envelope. I didn’t think so. I understand why Paul E made me cut an apology afterwards, but partly it’s because my family’s Jewish. I don’t follow the religion, but my family’s Jewish, and my last name is Levy, so people just assume I’m Jewish, and Paul E is Jewish, and Todd’s Jewish. Todd Gordon, the owner. So they thought it was a mockery of Christianity, but had nothing to do with that. I mean, Madonna masturbated with a crucifix on MTV. I’m thinking this is tame compared to that. To me, it was just a metaphor. It was a metaphor. The Crucifix with Sandman was just for him to feel my pain. Because Raven was always, I considered him a martyr for society’s dysfunction.”

Is it true you guys nearly knocked out the power 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. 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, 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.”

That could have been so bad:

“Yeah, but I had do something 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.”