While the wrestling world has had plenty of superstars that promoters seemingly didn’t know what to do with, there’s one big name from the nineties that could and should’ve been a tremendous main event star. Scott Levy was one of the few that was able to work throughout the nineties for all three big promotions several times throughout the decade as several different characters. But only one became a world champion and a bit of an ECW icon, Raven. Related: Wrestling Is At It's Best Right Now Between stints in GWF, WCW, and in WWE, one thing was certain about Scott Levy, he was determined to get over and find a character that worked. After seeing Point Break, he turned Patrick Swayze’s charismatic criminal further on its ear to become an outcast and Raven was born. He took the idea to Paul Heyman, who was swimming in the counterculture of the nineties, and Raven fit that bill completely.

The Greatest Story Ever Told?

Raven Vs Dreamer

His debut was teased for several weeks when Stevie Richards was having an identity crisis and was wrestling Tommy Dreamer as all sorts of variations of names that Raven used to wrestle by. When Raven finally appeared, an entire backstory unraveled little by little detailing how these two went to summer camp together and Dreamer was a jock while Raven was the outcast. Years later and Raven was out for revenge. Little by little more layers were added onto the story, including adding another feud against Sandman, where Raven manipulated Sandman’s own family to turn on him. In every Dreamer/Raven match, Dreamer would always come up a little short, up until their last battle before Raven headed to WCW. Raven in ECW led to plenty of iconic moments for the promotion - him getting handcuffed to a steel cage and Dreamer smashing him with a chair. The storyline is also responsible for introducing both Kimona and Beulah McGuillicutty in ECW. These all should have been signs of great things to come, but these moments became Raven’s glass ceiling.

Raven Goes Mainstream

Raven And Kimona

With WCW cooking on all cylinders, the company decided to get a little extreme and sign Raven to their arsenal. The company tried to recreate some of what made Raven work so well in WCW. He’d sit around brooding and convincing disenfranchised superstars to join his flock. But he also fell victim to the glass ceiling created by the likes of Goldberg and the nWo. Related: 5 Best Raven Matches In ECW (& 5 In WCW) There wasn’t much left to do in WCW creatively, and when the opportunity to walk away from the company presented itself, Raven headed back to ECW to shockingly help Tommy Dreamer win the tag team titles. It wouldn’t be long though before Raven found himself in the WWE.

Vince McMahon: “Who The F Hired Raven?!?!”

Raven In WWE

In WWE, Raven became the winningest hardcore champion of all time and had a memorable WrestleMania X7 match along with Kane and The Big Show. But other than that and a silly feud with Saturn involving Terry and Moppy, Raven didn’t have much of a career in WWE. According to him during an RF Shoot video, he was told by Michael Hayes that Vince McMahon once asked in a meeting “Who the f*** hired Raven?!” making it clear to him that he wasn’t going to get the opportunity that a lot of his fellow ECW alumni had gotten. He would at least resume his feud with Dreamer, this time losing a leaves his town match, banishing him from Raw until his release in 2003. Related: Where Have All The Heroes Of WWE Gone Unfortunately for Raven, he actually got exactly what he put into the character. He was a tortured outcast who nobody truly understood. But in reality, that’s exactly what happened! Both Eric Bischoff (who has admitted in the past, he didn’t understand the character) and Vince McMahon had no idea how to truly market and book Raven. Paul Heyman did, partly because he was also an outcast, shunned by the big promotions for being too smart for his own gold. Under Heyman’s watchful eye, Raven was able to flourish. But it was hard for either WCW or WWE to get behind such a “depressing” character on the surface. Had either promotion figured it out or were willing to work with Raven to better understand the character, his in-ring work would have taken over and let him get to the heights that many fans feel he should have gotten to.