10 Most Radical Wrestling Makeovers

If ever there was a case study that illustrated the stark difference between pre-Attitude Era WWE and Paul Heyman's envelope-pushing ECW product that partly inspired it, it's probably Raven.

Before he became one of the wresting industry's great enigmas over on the east coast, Raven was working for Vince McMahon, playing the role of a jumped-up, cocky heel so generic and nondescript that it would probably make Kenny Dykstra blush.

After his release in 1994, however, he rocked up in ECW almost unrecognisable from his previous appearances in the squared circle. Instead of talking about how much he really, really wanted to win wrestling matches, he started waxing philosophical, using quotes from Edgar Allan Poe.

For this transformation, you can only really credit the fact that Heyman ran a much less tight and controlling ship in Philadelphia. Rather than asking his performers to conform to rigid wrestling archetypes, he allowed them the freedom to go places the business had never been before - and it paid off in a huge way.