By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
PWMania interview with guest Raven
Interview conducted by Lewis Carlan
Interview available at PWMania.com
Raven on Tommy Dreamer’s comments on about his health: “My health is fine. Honestly, like, I think what the problem was, is in his interview, Tommy lives in a work shoot world. Like it’s a half work half shoot to him. And in his mind, Raven and Dreamer really went to summer camp together and fought over Beulah. And he was triumphing because he married her, I guess. I think what he meant to come across and say is, that I can’t wrestle, because I just had my knees replaced and I’m gonna have my shoulder replaced this year, so I can’t wrestle now. And it’d be at least a year of recovery for my shoulder replacement and then he added the working part, where he’s like, you know, I don’t know if I gave him a, you know, cause damage in the chair shot heard around the world so half shooting, half working.
“But if that one chair shot was what gave me brain damage. I mean, if I had brain damage, I’m sure I have some damage. Obviously, I think all wrestlers do from all the chair shots and head and drugs we take. But, you know to make it seem like that I have brain damage, like excessive brain damage where its affecting my life, which it doesn’t. And obviously, you can see I’m clear headed. And he started talking about boxers and how boxers, you know, when they start out there, he can’t watch boxing movies, because their videos because they start out clear speaking but then they get they start slurring their words at the end of their career.
“And somehow all that got boxed in together, and it came across like that’s what was happening to me. And I know he didn’t mean it that way. He was just trying to capitalize on you know, on the story, the storyline that he’s telling for Impact, where he’s trying to forsake hardcoreness to an extent or something. I’m not sure exactly. I haven’t followed it. But I was gonna have him rebuttal it, rebut it, you know, and just retract it. But then I figured he wouldn’t be able to explain it as clearly because he doesn’t know my life like I know my life. You know what I mean?”
On his health: “I’m in good health. I’m just suffering injuries from my career. You know, the shoulder replacement I probably needed for 10, 15 years. I haven’t had a lot of big injuries. But I’ve had a couple, I herniated three discs in my lower back. I had my left shoulder replaced in 2013 and it was so painful that I said that’s it I’m not getting the right one either replacing too but I’m like I’m not getting that until i absolutely have to and now I absolutely have to. Then I got to two knees replaced last year. And then I should be a perfectly healthy young man and or old young man. I still feel like I’m 28 inside. I’m 58 but I feel 28 and I probably have the organs of a 78 year old.”
If he’ll be wrestling again: “Yeah, it’ll be probably a year because, I’m gonna get my shoulder replaced and let it heal, but I’ll be 59/60 then, I’m not going to take any bumps. I never took any bumps before. Why should I start now?”
If he has a good relationship with Tommy Dreamer: “Yeah. Yeah. We talk. He says he loves me. But then he also says he hates me, he’s living in a half work half shoot reality. That makes him sound like he’s losing his mind, which he isn’t. It’s a more playful thing with him. You know what I mean? But but he wants to believe it’s like a Fox Mulder on the X Files. He has the poster as that says I want to believe with a spaceship. Tommy should have a poster of two wrestlers going at it and saying I want to believe it’s real.”
If he hopes to be in the WWE Hall of Fame in Philly next year: “I’m not expecting that to happen. I don’t think they see me that way. I don’t think Vince [McMahon] sees me that way. And obviously, if he saw me in that light, he would have used me better when I was there, so yeah, that’s not happening. I would almost bet everything I own that I’m not going to be inducted this year or any year in the future. And I think that’s why the Impact thing means a lot to me. Also the Impact thing they only do one person a year. So that means a lot too, because you’re not doing five, six people are you know, half a dozen. Well, I guess five or six is half a dozen.”
Raven also talked more about his current health, if there’s a future for him at Impact Wrestling, not needing to take bumps to get over, losing the WCW U.S. Title to Goldberg, MLW, and much more.
Went to college with him at the University of Delaware. Talked wrestling with him for over an hour one night at a fraternity party. He rambled on even back then. And that was before any chair shots.