Posted on 1/08/126 by Colin Vassallo
Raven sat down with Chris Van Vliet at the DDPY Performance
Center in Atlanta, Georgia to discuss his new documentary
“Nevermore: The Raven Effect” and why he wanted it to be
warts and all, what was the hardest topic to cover in the
documentary, an update on his current health and his early
onset Parkinson’s Disease, the inspiration behind his iconic
look, the chair shot heard around the world, almost knocking
out the power at WrestleMania 17, and more!
How would you say your overall health is right now?
“It’s good. I mean, I got the early onset Parkinson’s, which
I’m of the mind to say that I don’t have it. But it’s why I
have the tremor, and that’s what they think it is. There’s
no 100% proof tests, so I didn’t [get tested]. The test they
give to prove it only proves it like 90% and there’s a lot
of false positives and negatives in it. So there’s no
reason, because he said he would treat me the same way,
which is nothing as of now, because nothing’s bad enough,
although my tremor is really bad right now.”
You’re not on any sort of medication?
“No, no. So there’s no reason. So I’m just going to declare
that I’m not, that I don’t have early onset Parkinson’s and
convince myself that I don’t, because I’ve had it for like 8
to 10 years, and all this is a tremor so far.”
What causes this?
“They don’t know. I haven’t put enough study into the
diagnosis. Usually I figure out, read the doctor’s notes and
all that. But I’d rather just play along. I say I have it,
but I’m convinced I don’t. That it’s just a tremor, and I
figure mind over matter. Hopefully it’ll stay just a tremor,
as it has all these years.”
And you think it’s tied to the way you wrestled?
“Yeah, as I’m saying, I think it’s chair shots to the head.
It’s like Ali swore that he didn’t have Parkinson’s, and it
was just all the shots he took to the head. That’s what I
like to think it is, that and all the drugs. I’m not proud.
I used to be proud of my drug abuse, my ability to handle
drugs. Now, I’m just embarrassed by it.”
Are you sober now?
“I’ve been sober for years.”
So what was the story behind the chair shot heard around the
world?
“I had beaten up Dreamer so many times that they needed to
get some revenge on me, and to give the people something.
You had to give them something to hope in their babyface and
give them something to look like it was over the feud. I
forget exactly what led up to the chair shot, but when we
got there, Paul is like, ‘I’m gonna have Tommy hit you 10
times with the chair.’ I’m like, ‘No, you gotta hit me once.
It’ll mean so much more.’ He goes, ‘No, 10 times. You got to
take it 10 times.’ I’m like, ‘No, I’m not going to do it,
Paul.’ He goes, ‘What are you scared?’ And I’m like, ‘No,
I’ll take nine chair shots back here, but I’m only taking
one out there, because it’ll mean more if you hit me with a
bunch of them.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, but Axl Rotten is hitting
three chair shots in his match, and New Jack’s hitting five
in his.’ I’m like, it doesn’t matter. This is something
Roddy Piper taught me, doesn’t matter what happens in
anybody else’s match, as long as they believe in your stuff.
So I said, ‘I’m just taking one.’ He finally goes, ‘All
right, I trust you.’ So if Dreamer gave me the one shot and
it’s remembered. Imagine if there was five more coming after
it, it wouldn’t have meant anything.”
Did you think the crucifixion angle was too controversial?
“I didn’t think it was pushing the envelope. I didn’t think
so. I understand why Paul E made me cut an apology
afterwards, but partly it’s because my family’s Jewish. I
don’t follow the religion, but my family’s Jewish, and my
last name is Levy, so people just assume I’m Jewish, and
Paul E is Jewish, and Todd’s Jewish. Todd Gordon, the owner.
So they thought it was a mockery of Christianity, but had
nothing to do with that. I mean, Madonna masturbated with a
crucifix on MTV. I’m thinking this is tame compared to that.
To me, it was just a metaphor. It was a metaphor. The
Crucifix with Sandman was just for him to feel my pain.
Because Raven was always, I considered him a martyr for
society’s dysfunction.”
Is it true you guys nearly knocked out the power at
WrestleMania 17?
“That’s true. I’m driving the golf cart, and Show’s choking
me. I didn’t expect Show to be choking me, so I wanted to
swerve a little bunch because I didn’t want to just drive
straight, because we’re supposed to drive all the way around
the Astrodome, make a full 360-degree drive. That was my
favorite spot of the match, and I totally ruined it because
there was a fence, a chain link fence from ceiling to
ground, and the sidewalk dropped off on the other side of
the chain. So I went to bounce off the chain with the car,
figuring I bounce off and swerve back on, and the wheel just
went off the edge and just died right there. The car
wouldn’t move, you know, the golf car wouldn’t move because
the wheel was off the road, and so I tried to get it back
on, and Show is going ‘No, no, leave it. Leave it.’ I’m
like, I want to go. Kane’s going to chase us in the other
golf cart. It’s going to be so cool. So then I just ran out
in the traffic and got run over by Kane.”
That could have been so bad:
“Yeah, but I had to do something in my mind to make up for
the spot that I screwed up. But when I found out after the
show, one of the production guys grabbed a hold of me, and
he said, ‘You know you came within millimeters of cutting
off the power to the entire show. You landed right on the
wire that runs the power to the show, if you would have cut
through, you would have killed power to the entire event.’
That would have got me so much heat, I would have definitely
been fired for that.”