10 WWE Jobbers Who Became Wrestling GAME-CHANGERS
5. Raven
Whether he was Scotty The Body (no relation to Jesse Ventura) or Johnny Polo, this dude definitely stood out in the WWF of the early-1990s, and not for wholly positive reasons. Scotty/Johnny always stuck out like a sore thumb when wrestling matches or stalking ringside as a manager, and he reportedly got into hot water with Vince McMahon for partying with Shane through the week.
Thankfully, Shane-O was saved by those paragons of virtue known as the Mean Street Posse. God bless Joey Abs. In Abs we trust. Right, enough of that. Back to more serious matters.
There was nothing jokey about Polo's reinvention as Raven in ECW following another lame duck spell in WCW. Capitalising on the popularity of the grunge movement was shrewd, and so Raven turned into wrestling's very own walking, talking incarnation of Kurt Cobain. He genuinely looked like he'd just strolled off stage after refusing to an encore for fears of being labelled a corporate sellout.
Eric Bischoff wouldn't love the Raven character once Scotty returned to WCW, which is a shame, but it was an industry-shaking gimmick in Paul Heyman's cult promotion. Maybe that owed a lot to the grungy feel of ECW, or perhaps Raven was just ridiculously good. The truth probs sits somewhere in the middle.
Regardless, going from putting Koko B. Ware over in dark matches before Superstars tapings to working some of the most controversial angles alongside The Sandman and Tommy Dreamer in the land of extreme turned Raven into one of wrestling's coolest creations.