Raven In WWE - What Went Wrong?
Leaving Turner money on the table in 1999 came with a no-compete clause that parked any WWE aspirations for a year, resulting in Raven briefly returning to ECW to steal a living as the unlikely babyface partner of both Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman. The company was already a door mat for him before he wiped the last remaining WCW sh*t off his shoes, but they needed a star and he needed a spot.
This is the strange thing about Vince McMahon's aforementioned incredulity. Raven's impending arrival was a bit of a worst kept secret at the time, but McMahon was obviously so insulated in his money-sh*tting bubble that he had no idea.
Everybody else thinking the former manager/announcer could add value didn't matter if the boss disagreed, and he seemed to from the off. Teaming with Tazz to extract a few more ECW chants reduced his character to something Scott Levy had never had to tackle in the gimmick before - obvious mediocrity. He had no nest, nor flock, nor motivation to inflict violence beyond this horribly tacked-on relationship with the Human Suplex Machine. But Raven had always been about control, and Levy himself fairly quickly found a way to try and assert some over his career.
CONT'D...