Raven vs. Tommy Dreamer (Jan 1995 – Jun 1997)

Background

Tommy Dreamer, born Thomas James Laughlin, took his ring name in 1992 while working in New England's Century Wrestling Alliance, reportedly in tribute to Dusty Rhodes.[8] He joined ECW at NWA Bloodfest in October 1993, and his first gimmick there, a "pretty boy" in green suspenders, got him booed out of buildings.[8] He did win the ECW Tag Team Championship with Johnny Gunn, taking the belts from Johnny Hotbody and Tony Stetson in nine seconds, two men who would later turn up as Raven's lackeys.[8][7]

Raven was Scott Levy, who had worked in the WWF as Johnny Polo.[7] After leaving, he built a new character: a depressed, nihilistic misanthrope in flannel and a leather jacket, drawn from Edgar Allan Poe's poem and from Patrick Swayze's character in Point Break, who ended his promos with "Quoth the Raven, Nevermore."[7] "Creating Raven was solely my idea," he said in 1997. "It comes from a very tormented past and tortured childhood."[9]

He pitched it first to Jim Cornette's Smoky Mountain Wrestling, then to Paul Heyman, who brought him into ECW as a foil for Dreamer.[7] Heyman's goal was to make Dreamer a star. As Raven later put it, they "needed to create a backstory and involve emotion, which is what sells tickets," and it was Raven who came up with the idea that they had known each other, and a girl named Beulah, at summer camp as kids.[10]

Raven's introduction came through Stevie Richards, who had spent late 1994 in an "identity crisis," wrestling as Stevie Flamingo, Stevie the Body, and Stevie Polo, all versions of Levy's old names. After another loss to Dreamer, Richards promised to produce "the real Johnny Polo," and Raven debuted on the January 10, 1995 episode of Hardcore TV with a vendetta against Dreamer.[7]

Build-up

Raven built a stable of hangers-on, Raven's Nest, with Richards as its first member and Johnny Hotbody and Tony Stetson joining in February.[7] On March 18, 1995, Dreamer ran the Nest's gauntlet at the ECW Arena. He eliminated Stetson, Hotbody, and Richards in turn, and then Raven eliminated him.[2]

At Three Way Dance on April 8, the backstory arrived. Raven explained that he and Dreamer had been at summer camp together as children, where Dreamer had spurned an overweight girl with acne named Beulah McGillicutty. The tellings differ on what happened next: in one, Raven became her boyfriend; in another, she slept with Raven out of spite.[7][4][22]

Richards then announced he had tracked Beulah down. She was now a Penthouse model, and she had a grudge against Dreamer.[4][7]

She came to ringside for Raven and Dreamer's first singles match that night. Richards tried to kiss her, she slapped him, and he began choking her.

When Dreamer stepped in to help, she blinded him with hairspray. The fight had been a setup. Richards hit a Stevie Kick, and Raven pinned Dreamer with the Evenflow DDT in 8:42.[4][3]

A week later at Hostile City Showdown, Raven cut a promo retelling the camp story before their rematch.[6] Near the end, Beulah interfered again, and Dreamer gave her a piledriver.[6]

Records differ on the result: one lists a disqualification win for Raven, another a no contest at 7:30.[6][5] Dreamer later said it was the first time the ECW fans "truly accepted" him.[6] Beulah went on to take numerous piledrivers from him over the course of the feud.[7]

Raven kept winning. He beat Dreamer in Tampa in May, and in June at Barbed Wire, Hoodies and Chokeslams, the Nest beat down Dreamer's ally Luna Vachon and broke several of Dreamer's fingers.[11][7] Raven and Richards won the ECW World Tag Team Championship on June 30.[7]

Dreamer got his receipts in tag matches. At Heatwave '95 on July 15, he and The Pitbulls beat Raven and the Dudley Brothers, and afterward he handcuffed Raven and hit him with a steel chair.[7]

The shot went into the opening titles of ECW Hardcore TV. "The most insane shot is the one that still plays at the beginning of the ECW show," Raven said in 1997. "I was handcuffed crucifix-style to a steel cage and hit with a steel chair."[9]

The Nest kept growing around the story. At Wrestlepalooza on August 5, Dreamer's long-time ally Cactus Jack turned on him in an eight-man tag and joined Raven.[7] At November to Remember on November 18, Dreamer and Terry Funk beat Raven and Cactus Jack in the main event.[7][1]

In singles, though, the pattern held. Raven beat Dreamer at December to Dismember on December 9, and again at Holiday Hell in New York on December 29 to become No. 1 contender for the ECW World Heavyweight Championship.[7][12] In the build to that match Raven added a new grievance: that Dreamer had not been there for him during his parents' divorce, which Dreamer denied.[7]

At House Party on January 5, 1996, the triangle flipped. Richards tried to kiss Beulah, and she refused him and announced she was pregnant.

When Raven confronted her, she told him he was not the father, Tommy Dreamer was. Dreamer stormed the ring, cleared out Raven, Richards, and The Blue Meanie, and embraced her.[7] Other accounts date that show to January 7 and put Beulah's formal switch to Dreamer's side on the January 16 Hardcore TV.[22]

The pregnancy turned out to be another swerve. At Hostile City Showdown in 1996, Shane Douglas told Dreamer that Beulah had never been pregnant and had been cheating on him. When Dreamer demanded to know with whom, Raven's new valet, Kimona Wanalaya, said it was her, and kissed Beulah to the mat. After a moment's hesitation, Dreamer kissed both women and announced, "I'll take 'em both, I'm hardcore!"[22]

Three weeks later, on January 27, Raven beat The Sandman for the ECW World Heavyweight Championship at a Hardcore TV taping in Philadelphia, with heavy help from the Nest.[13][7] He had introduced a new valet, Kimona Wanalaya, the same night; she left him in April after he slapped her.[7] That summer, as champion, he went after The Sandman by drawing Sandman's ex-wife Lori and young son Tyler into Raven's Nest, bringing them to ringside to wage psychological warfare on him.[7] Dreamer challenged him for it at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo on August 11, 1996, and lost again.[14] Raven lost the belt in October 1996 when he failed to show up for a match, then won it back at Holiday Hell on December 7 in a barbed wire match.[13]

The Matches

The last stretch began at Barely Legal, ECW's first pay-per-view, on April 13, 1997. Raven defended the ECW World Heavyweight Championship against Terry Funk, and when Raven's Nest interfered, Dreamer came out to counter them and hit Raven with a DDT. Funk pinned Raven in 7:20 to take the title.[25][26]

On the April 26 Hardcore TV, Raven talked his former lackey Stevie Richards into reuniting one last time to get revenge on Funk and Dreamer.[25] At The Buffalo Invasion on May 17, Raven and Richards beat Funk and Dreamer in 16:18, but Raven was the first man eliminated from a four-way match for Funk's title the same night, and Dreamer was blamed for costing him his chances to win it back.[27][25] On the May 29 Hardcore TV, ECW announced the two would settle it in a Loser Leaves Town match.[25]

Raven was on his way to WCW, and ECW booked his exit as the end of the feud: the Loser Leaves Town match at Wrestlepalooza on June 7, 1997, at the ECW Arena in front of about 1,250 fans.[15][16]

Raven came out with Chastity and Lupus, and Dreamer with Beulah.[15] The crowd greeted Raven with early chants of "You sold out."[16] Lupus advised Raven not to wrestle at all, and he walked out until Dreamer chased him down and brought the fight back.[25] The match started as a brawl through the ECW Arena before heading back to the ring, and ran on hardcore rules, with weapons, big bumps, and more than one run-in.[16]

After a string of near falls, Dreamer hooked Raven for a DDT, shouted "E-C-Fucking-W" to the crowd, and delivered it for the three count.[16] The match went 15:06.[15]

It was the first time Dreamer had beaten Raven in a singles match. In more than two years of singles bouts between them, Raven had won every one that reached a finish.[1] Per the stipulation, Raven was gone from ECW.[7]

Dreamer didn't get long to celebrate. The lights went out, and when they came back on, Rob Van Dam and Sabu were attacking him. The lights went out again and came up on Jerry Lawler, from the rival WWF, standing in the ring insulting ECW.[25] Dreamer's next program, alongside The Sandman against Van Dam, Sabu, and Lawler, began right there in the ring where his last one had ended.[25]

Aftermath

Six months into his WCW run, Raven was still thinking about the man he'd left behind. Asked in December 1997 who he'd most like to face, he said: "If I could chose, it would be Tommy Dreamer. I'd like to have a barbed wire match with Dreamer." In the same interview he called Heyman "a genius when it comes to booking storylines."[9]

He came back sooner than fans expected.[10] A no-compete clause kept him from going straight from WCW to the WWF, and through a loophole he signed a one-year ECW deal on August 25, 1999.[7] The next night, at the Last Show at the Madhouse, the promotion's debut on TNN, he made a surprise return and won the ECW World Tag Team Championship with Tommy Dreamer from the Dudley Boyz, who were leaving for the WWF.[7][17]

The former enemies held the belts for 135 days as a reluctant team, losing them to The Impact Players, Justin Credible and Lance Storm, at Guilty as Charged in Birmingham, Alabama on January 9, 2000.[17][18] The partnership didn't survive the loss. Dreamer won the titles again, with Masato Tanaka, on February 26, and on March 4 Raven and Mike Awesome took them from Dreamer and Tanaka.[17] At Living Dangerously a week later, the Impact Players won a three-way that included both teams.[19]

Raven left ECW again in 2000 and returned to the WWF, where the two met once more on December 21, 2002, on Sunday Night Heat, with Raven winning a match whose stipulation put him back on Raw.[7][20] In 2010, at TNA's Hardcore Justice show, Raven beat Dreamer again with Mick Foley as special referee.[21]

Beulah McGillicutty stayed on Dreamer's side of the story. She wrestled in intergender tags with him in 1997 and was at his side when ECW's wrestlers appeared on WWF Raw that year.[22]

In 1998, tired of wrestling, she was written out of storylines when the Dudley Boyz put her through their Dudley Death Drop.[22] At the 2010 Hardcore Justice show she was shown in the front row with their two daughters before getting involved in Dreamer's match, hitting Raven with a low blow.[22] She retired for good in 2014, after accompanying Dreamer to the ring one last time at House of Hardcore, his own promotion.[22][8] The pairing outlasted ECW. Dreamer married Trisa Hayes, who played Beulah, on October 12, 2002, at the Lake Isle Country Club in Eastchester, New York, and they have twin daughters.[8][22]

Behind the Scenes

The feud's premise was invented from the start. Raven and Dreamer had not met as children, and the summer camp, the spurned girl, and the old grudge were Raven's idea for giving Heyman the emotional backstory he wanted for Dreamer.[10] The two men met at a social gathering with Heyman and others and, by Raven's account, "immediately hit it off" working together.[10] Looking back on the rivalry together in a 2010 shoot interview, they described agreeing to do what was best for the product even when they disagreed.[10]

Beulah herself was cast into the role. Trisa Hayes was working as a backup dancer for Prince when she met baseball player Ron Gant, who introduced her to his friend Raven; Raven introduced her to Heyman, and brought her in thinking she would add a new dimension to the feud.[22][7] She had one small wrestling credit already: a 1988 Stampede Wrestling appearance as Brian Pillman's on-screen sister, while she was dating Pillman.[22] Dreamer, the babyface, went on to piledrive her repeatedly on television.[6][7]

Raven's run at the top was eventful outside the Dreamer story too. At High Incident in October 1996, Raven's Nest "crucified" The Sandman, tying him to a cross with a crown of barbed wire. The angle drew wide criticism, led Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle to cut ties with ECW, and delayed the company's move to pay-per-view. At Heyman's instruction, Raven came to the ring to deliver what was described as a somewhat insincere apology.[7]

The losses were the plan. Heyman's stated aim was to make Dreamer a star, and the story did it by having him lose every singles match with a finish for more than two years, winning only in tags and in the angles around the matches.[10][1] The same crowd that had booed him in suspenders was, by his own account, accepting him by the spring of 1995.[8][6] Reviewing Hostile City Showdown, one writer called the Raven and Dreamer segment "historically important to the angle."[23]

The records around the feud's key dates don't all agree, which is worth knowing for anyone citing them. The Wrestlepalooza match is listed at 15:06 in one results database and 16:06 in another, and some retrospectives date the show to June 6 rather than June 7.[15][16] Raven's 1999 return is dated August 26, the night he and Dreamer won the tag titles, in WWE's official title history, while another account puts it on the September 3 episode of ECW on TNN.[17][25] The Hostile City Showdown result, as noted above, is recorded two different ways.[5][6]

Legacy

Across 17 years, from a March 1995 gauntlet match to a 2012 tag match, Raven and Dreamer wrestled each other 28 times in singles, tags, and multi-man matches, as enemies and, for a stretch in 1999 and 2000, as champions together.[1] Only one of their singles matches in ECW went Dreamer's way, and it was the one that ended the feud.[1] Dreamer's wins over Raven before then came with partners: The Pitbulls at Heatwave '95, and Terry Funk in the November to Remember 1995 main event, which ran 13:36.[28][29]

One retrospective called it "arguably the greatest feud in the history of the promotion."[16] WWE still hosts the Wrestlepalooza match on its own site under the title "Tommy Dreamer vs. Raven: Wrestlepalooza 1997."[24]

The images from it lasted, too. The handcuffed chair shot opened ECW's television show, and Raven was still describing it as "the most insane shot" two years later.[9] The summer camp mythology they invented in 1995 carried them through a pregnancy angle, two world title reigns for Raven, a Loser Leaves Town match, and a tag title reunion.[7][13][17]

And the story that was built around a woman scorned by Dreamer's character ended with the real Tommy Dreamer and the real Beulah married, raising twin daughters, years after the angle that brought them together.[8][22]

See Also

Sources & Further Listening

1. "Raven vs. Tommy Dreamer: all matches" — Cagematch: The Internet Wrestling Database (28 matches, 1995–2012). https://www.cagematch.net/?id=111&nr=1265&page=2
2. "ECW Hardcore TV #101" (taped Mar 18, 1995) results — Cagematch. https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=47272
3. "ECW Three Way Dance" (Apr 8, 1995) results — Cagematch. https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=360
4. Three Way Dance — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Way_Dance
5. "ECW Hostile City Showdown 1995" (Apr 15, 1995) results — Cagematch. https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=361
6. Hostile City Showdown (1995) — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_City_Showdown_(1995)
7. Raven (wrestler) — Wikipedia (ECW career, citing TheRavenEffect.com monthly results archive and ECW histories). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven_(wrestler)
8. Tommy Dreamer — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Dreamer
9. John Powell, "Quoth the Raven: The Raven interview" — Slam! Wrestling, December 5, 1997. https://slamwrestling.net/index.php/1997/12/05/quoth-the-raven/
10. Brian Bayless, review of RF Video Face Off #9: Extreme Rivalry with Raven and Tommy Dreamer (2010 shoot interview) — Scott's Blog of Doom, January 28, 2016. https://www.blogofdoom.com/2016/01/28/rf-video-face-off-9-raven-tommy-dreamer/
11. "ECW Hardcore TV #108" (taped May 6, 1995, Tampa) results — Cagematch. https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=47278
12. "ECW Holiday Hell 1995" (Dec 29, 1995) results — Cagematch. https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=367
13. List of ECW World Heavyweight Champions — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ECW_World_Heavyweight_Champions
14. IWA Japan / ECW / FMW show, Korakuen Hall (Aug 11, 1996) results — Cagematch. https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=49349
15. "ECW Wrestlepalooza 1997" (Jun 7, 1997) results — Cagematch. https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=382
16. Geno Mrosko, "On this date in ECW history: Tommy Dreamer finally beats Raven" — Cageside Seats, June 6, 2013. https://www.cagesideseats.com/2013/6/6/4387898/on-this-date-in-ecw-history-tommy-dreamer-beats-raven-jerry-lawler-invades-wrestlepalooza-1997
17. ECW Tag Team Championship title history — WWE.com. https://www.wwe.com/titlehistory/ecw-tag-team-championship
18. "ECW Guilty As Charged 2000" (Jan 9, 2000) results — Cagematch. https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=422
19. "ECW Living Dangerously 2000" (Mar 12, 2000) results — Cagematch. https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=432
20. "WWE Sunday Night Heat #230" (Dec 21, 2002) results — Cagematch. https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=10220
21. "TNA Hardcore Justice 2010" (Aug 8, 2010) results — Cagematch. https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=54095
22. Beulah McGillicutty — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beulah_McGillicutty
23. Matt Peddycord, "ECW Hostile City Showdown 1995" review — Wrestling Recaps. https://wrestlingrecaps.com/ecw/ecw-hostile-city-showdown-1995-4151995/
24. "Tommy Dreamer vs. Raven: Wrestlepalooza 1997" (match video) — WWE.com. https://www.wwe.com/videos/tommy-dreamer-vs-raven-wrestlepalooza-1997
25. Wrestlepalooza (1997) — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrestlepalooza_(1997)
26. "ECW Barely Legal" (Apr 13, 1997) results and Wrestling Observer ratings — Cagematch. https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=381
27. "ECW The Buffalo Invasion" (May 17, 1997) results — Cagematch. https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=28723
28. "ECW Heat Wave 1995" (Jul 15, 1995) results — Cagematch. https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=363
29. "ECW November To Remember 1995" (Nov 18, 1995) results — Cagematch. https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=366

Further Listening

• RF Video Face Off #9: Extreme Rivalry (2010) — Raven and Tommy Dreamer interviewed together about the feud
• Tommy Dreamer on Busted Open Radio (SiriusXM) — his long-running show, with frequent ECW recollections
• The Rise and Fall of ECW (WWE documentary, 2004) — context on the promotion's house style and long-running angles