The Gimmick Table: The Origin of Raven

Brian Damage

A gimmick is something that is intended to hook the attention of fans to a wrestler. They may be outrageous or steeped more in reality, whatever the case may be…some have succeeded and many others have failed. The Gimmick Table takes a look at the origins of some of your favorite and not so favorite gimmicks of professional wrestlers.

Today we browse the gimmick of Raven

In 1994, Scott Levy had walked away from a very stable job working in the World Wrestling Federation under the gimmick of ‘Johnny Polo’ as both a manager and office worker. Levy said he gave up a salary of $100,000 a year and health benefits to continue to pursue a job as a wrestler. The problem was, Levy was not getting many gigs after quitting the WWF. After talking with his good friend ‘Diamond’ Dallas Page about potentially getting back in with WCW….Page advised Levy to try and reinvent himself.

DDP suggested that Levy change his look and the way he presented himself as a wrestler. Page told him to start wearing flannel shirts, cut off jeans and develop a “tough guy” persona….much different from the rich, spoiled, snotty character he often played in his career. DDP told Levy to watch the movie ‘Point Break’ and study actor Patrick Swayze’s character named ‘Bodhi’ and take parts of that character and develop something for himself. Levy watched the movie and remembered how when in WCW, he used to travel with Brian Pillman and recalled how Pillman enjoyed reading books while on long car trips. One of those books was a series of stories from Edgar Allan Poe. Levy started reading his works and came up with the name Raven from one of Poe’s writings of the same name.

Scott Levy made his Raven character dark by channeling his youth and some of the pain he endured as a child. Levy needed a wrestling promotion with television to showcase his new gimmick. His hope was to get hired by either WCW or the WWF again. He noticed a promotion on television called ECW and decided to try and get in there. He reached out to DDP who had strong ties with Paul Heyman and it got him a tryout. Levy admitted that Heyman was very skeptical of the Raven character. According to Levy, Heyman initially felt that all it was was Scotty the Body or Johnny Polo in grunge clothes. After wrestling and cutting a deep, dark promo…Heyman was impressed and gave him a job with ECW. Levy acknowledges that Raven would not have lasted if he went back to either WCW or the WWF at first. ECW gave him the freedom to grow the character into what it became.

You can read other Gimmick Table entries here