12 Pearls Of Wrestling Wisdom From Raven On Talk Is Jericho

By Jack G King / November 27, 2015

Raven made his second appearance on Y2J's 'Talk Is Jericho' podcast this week, this time focusing more upon the tricks and tips to succeeding in the business (from both a wrestling and booking point of view). He certainly has plenty of experience to draw upon, having worked in all of the 'Big Three' promotions during the Monday Night Wars and, in the process, encountering some of the most revolutionary and controversial thinkers in the industry. As a crucial part of ECW's game-changing, meteoric rise in the mid-90s, you might expect Raven to take a radical viewpoint on many topics. Instead, he is disarmingly old-school when talking about various aspects of pro wrestling, dropping knowledge nuggets from Roddy Piper, talking up the importance of storyline over workrate, and even hurling a few critical barbs at the attitude of internet wrestling fans.

12. To Be A Great Heel, You Have To Make A Fool Of Yourself

Raven frequently brings up the notion that, to be a truly effective heel, a wrestler has to be willing to "show their ass" - or sacrifice a little ego for the sake of garnering heat. He explains that too many workers are obsessed with being 'cool heels', while very few are good enough to resist the temptation of a crowd's affection. Jericho asks how Raven tried to escape the 'cool heel' stigma in ECW, and he replies that he did so by being "a whiny bitch". The character of Raven always railed against the injustice of the world, but blamed everyone but himself for any hardships. Y2J is also a good example of this, having reinvented his heel image several times throughout his career to prevent fans from identifying with any one character too much.