The Secret History Of ECW | Wrestling Timelines
June 7, 1997 - Dreamer Pins Raven
Concluding a rivalry that defined ECW’s golden creative age, Tommy Dreamer finally pins Raven. The key theme was that he never could. Raven, the grunge wrestler in the grunge promotion, attended the same summer camp as Dreamer in their teenage years. Dreamer was the jock; Raven the outcast. They were joined by Beulah McGillicutty, who was “fat” and mocked as a youngster crushing on Dreamer, but becomes a pin-up model romantically involved with Raven in her twenties.
It’s very soapy, a little corny, and any heft to this experimental teen drama dissolves when Dreamer takes both of Raven’s chicks. That’s how cool and sexy and hardcore he is. It all descends into a daft love quadrangle, but the Raven character incorporates some truly forward-thinking stuff.
Raven, in 1996, is embroiled in controversy on two occasions. He brainwashes the Sandman’s wife Lori and young son Tyler into joining his ‘Nest’ stable. The sight of a very young child playing a misanthropic figure is unsettling and exploitative, since Tyler is asked to handle dark adult material that wrestling as a medium is not considered sophisticated enough to pull off. Hearing Tyler accuse his dad of being a “drunk” responsible for his parents’ divorce is a bit much.
Also, to rewind briefly, at High Incident on October 26, 1996, Raven and his Nest crucify the Sandman, placing a crown of barbed wire on his head. The ECW Arena loathes this. The promotion feels it necessary to apologise. PPV carriers threaten to pull the mooted debut of ECW, which again changes the course of history. A frankly naive Kurt Angle, tentatively interested in entering the pro wrestling game, attends High Incident. He is appalled by the angle, is fearful of how it might impact his reputation, and disassociates himself from ECW and, until the WWF comes calling, wrestling itself.
As the Dreamer Vs. Raven story ends, the WWF plots a new years-long saga of its own, premised on a backstory from a character’s youth: the Undertaker’s feud with his hitherto unheard of storyline brother Kane, who was thought to have perished in a house fire that also claimed the lives of their parents. This Undertaker Vs. Kane programme was mapped out in Philly.
Raven Vs. Dreamer is not something that becomes a standard storytelling model - it’s ambitious, and stretches suspension of disbelief in the hyper-aware internet age - but years later, in AEW, super-heel and student of the game Maxwell Jacob Friedman weaves his formative years into his long-term character arc. His experiences as a bullied child inform his hateful, vengeful worldview.
The conclusion to Raven Vs. Dreamer is ostensibly definitive, a happy ending, but it’s enforced: Raven is going to, yes, WCW.