The Rise & Fall of ECW (12 page)

Raven and Tommy Dreamer.

“I see Scott Levy again, with his hair long and a leather jacket on. I ask him, ‘What do you want to call yourself?’ He said, ‘Raven.’ I said, ‘Okay, is this like the Crow?’ He had kind of a babyfaced character in mind, kind of like the movie. I said to him, ‘Would you be willing to walk a line with me on this one? Would you be a poet of the macabre?’ He needed an editor, and needed someone to give him a concept. I would have him go on TV at first and quote Voltaire. I’d have him quote Jim Morrison. He would say these things, and I said your catch phase would be, ‘Quote the Raven nevermore.’ I said, ‘And you are going to be a heel.’ He said, ‘Okay, so why would people hate me?’ I said, ‘Okay, let’s figure this out.’”

They did this by creating a storyline with Tommy Dreamer. Even though Dreamer had gone a long way to winning over fans with the Sandman feud, where he was caned, Dreamer was still not where ECW wanted him to be.

“Tommy Dreamer was a homegrown babyface, and we just couldn’t get the hardcore fans to accept him,” Heyman states. “We had just gotten through the blinding thing—the
November to Remember 1994
—where Sandman came back and peeled off the bandage. The audience, no matter what we did, still wasn’t accepting Dreamer. Even though he had this amazing feud with the Sandman, it became all about the Sandman and not about Dreamer.”

Raven went on TV and said things like, “My mission is not complete. I am here for a purpose, and my purpose is my pain, because I feel your pain, and you know who you are. Quote the Raven nevermore.” And he would strike this crucifix-like pose that became a signature gimmick for Raven. Fans weren’t quite sure what to make of it, but they were captivated by it.

In March, before the April show, Raven went on TV and declared his intention to come to ECW. “My purpose is simple,” he said. “I’m going to get Tommy Dreamer. Tommy Dreamer and I went to camp together. Dreamer was always popular, and I was never popular. That is what happens when you are an only child, with an abusive drunk father who beats on you. No one wants to hang out with you. ‘Hey, let’s go to Raven’s house. No, no his father might beat me up, too.’ When I was in camp I had a girl. She was the fat girl at camp. Tommy Dreamer and I fought over this girl. And you know what, Tommy Dreamer? I never forgave you for stealing her, and I promise you, you will feel my pain.”

The “fat” girl turned out to be a beautiful woman named Trisa Hayes, who was born March 14, 1969, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She got into wrestling briefly in 1988 in Stampede Wrestling in Calgary, as Brian Pillman’s sister. She was dating Pillman at the time. In 1995, while attending a Super Bowl party in Miami with baseball player Ron Gant, Hayes, who had appeared in
Penthouse
and other magazines, met Raven and told him she wanted to get back into wrestling. Paul saw the magazine layouts, and, on Raven’s recommendation, invited her to ECW to be a character called Beulah McGillicutty.

“She was so ridiculously hot and had this innocent, sweet face, and I knew this was the perfect way for Raven to become the all-around heel,” Heyman says. “We would have him be abusive toward her, and everyone will want to see Raven get his ass kicked.”

Raven also added another part to his act, a lackey named Michael Manna, born on October 9, 1971, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and trained by Mike Sharpe. He went by the name Stevie Richards and had been languishing for three years as a preliminary wrestler in the promotion but seemed to be a perfect fit for Raven’s sycophant, another victim of Raven’s abuse to fire up the fans.

Dreamer was scheduled to face Raven for the first time at the April 8 show. Beulah McGillicutty made her debut as well. She took a can of hair spray and sprayed it in Dreamer’s face, and Raven hit Dreamer with the DDT and won the match. They matched up a week later at the arena, and it was a raucous bout, even by ECW standards. A bloody Dreamer laid Raven out on the canvas with a chair and the referee, and was about to give Raven the DDT when Beulah, wearing a schoolgirl outfit, came in and started pounding Dreamer on the back. Dreamer turned around and grabbed Beulah by the ears, picked her up to put her in a piledriver, and of course the schoolgirl skirt was down and showed her pink panties. He turned her to all four sides of the arena, and the fans went crazy. Dreamer piledrived Beulah in the middle of the ring, and stood over both Beulah and Raven. Dreamer extended his arms in a Raven pose. The whole audience started chanting, “He’s hardcore! He’s hardcore!” and then “Dreamer! Dreamer!” and then “ECW! ECW!” From that moment, Tommy Dreamer was a made man.

“The fans really truly accepted me then,” Dreamer recalls. “I started wrestling with a T-shirt instead of the suspenders. My goal was to make those people like me, and there were a lot of little things I did that Paul [Heyman] helped me out with. He used to manage Arn Anderson, and I remember when I would go to the ring, people would go to high-five me, and as I would go to hit their hands, they would pull them back, and Paul said, ‘Don’t do it. Don’t ever do it again.’ I was like, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘When Arn Anderson comes out, the fans respect him. Make these people want to touch you, as opposed to you wanting to touch them.’ Also, if you looked at what Hulk Hogan would do, he would always look up to the rafters and point to the people. I got that from Paul helping me. It worked, and Paul pointed out that a great babyface, the men respect him and the women want to fuck him. That is kind of what I was.”

This would be the start of a feud that would be the backbone of ECW. “The feud between me and Raven was probably one of the best feuds in ECW for the simple fact that I never beat him,” Dreamer explains. “For three years, I never beat him. Every time I would come close, I would somehow not pull it off.

“Paul had allowed myself and Raven a lot of creative freedom, which was a blessing. A lot of times in this business, you are told, ‘This is what you have to do,’ instead of someone telling you, ‘What do you want to do?’ What? It was Raven and Dreamer, but then we started incorporating other people. So many things shot off that and so many people’s lives were affected by it.”

In the strange world of wrestling, strange things happen. Seven years later, Beulah—Trisa Hayes—married Tommy Dreamer. “We were just friends when I first met her,” Dreamer says. “I really didn’t like her. Most of the greatest stuff in wrestling is stolen. I remember Jerry Lawler piledriving Rick Rude’s valet. That is what I wanted to do. That was why we did it. She got over as well on her own. She was trying to be a heel, but she was a hot girl, and this was Philadelphia, and they just accepted her as a babyface.”

Women—beautiful women—were a big part of ECW, and there were a number of them who became stars in the promotion besides Beulah. There was Woman, Elektra, Dawn Marie, Kimona Wannalaya, and a former Catholic school cheerleader from Philadelphia named Francine Fournier, who was known in ECW as “Francine, Queen of Extreme.”

Francine, born February 19, 1972, in Philadelphia, was working behind a desk for a life insurance company when she came to a life decision—she wanted something with more excitement than life insurance. “One night I was flipping through the channels when I found Eastern Championship Wrestling,” Francine remembers. “There was a commercial on TV, saying if you wanted to be a wrestler or a manager, call this number. I watched it for about a month, then I decided to give them a call. I didn’t know anything about wrestling or the business. I called and went down to meet Tod Gordon, and started going to wrestling school.

“I was the only girl. It was four guys and myself, and J.T. Smith was my trainer. I trained with the men to wrestle. I did everything they did. Every week I said to myself I was going to quit. I was 21 years old and weighed 110 pounds. One of the first things they make you do is run the ropes, and when I would get done running the ropes, my whole right side would have deep purple bruises. There were times when I couldn’t move my neck, and I would be black and blue all over. I would say I’m not going back next week. But then I would feel better, and keep going. There wasn’t a week that went by where I didn’t go to training. I just stuck it out, and I’m glad I did.

“I went to wrestling school for seven months. I did a couple of independent shows while I was going to school. Then I met Paul and started doing ECW house shows, and then they put me on television.”

Francine got her start working as a “devoted fan” of Stevie Richards, and gained the respect of the wrestlers quickly. “Once the other wrestlers saw my work ethic and all the bumps I would take, they considered me one of the boys,” she says. “I tried just as hard as everybody else, and never said no. Whatever they wanted me to do, I did. I gave them respect, and they gave me respect right back. I tried to prove myself as much as possible and did whatever they wanted me to do, no matter how crazy it was. I would say, ‘Okay, that’s great,’ and I would just do it with a smile on my face, and I think that won them over.”

The Queen of Extreme, Francine Fournier.

The April 8 show was also supposed to feature the culmination of a tag team feud among Benoit & Malenko, Sabu & Tazz, and The Public Enemy. “Benoit and Malenko beat Sabu and Tazz for the titles. Now we have tag team champions that The Public Enemy want to face and Sabu and Tazz want to face. At the same time, Sabu and Tazz and The Public Enemy want to face each other,” Heyman recalls. “We have the classic makings for a three-way dance. We spend the whole month of March building this up, at every show. Anytime The Public Enemy is in the ring, or Sabu and Tazz, or Benoit and Malenko, we are building this up. Everybody is chasing everybody, and everybody has a reason to chase the other guy. This was intricately booked dating back to the night that Benoit hurt Sabu, which was an accident that we capitalized on. From that moment forward, we were building up to the three-way dance.”

But in a volatile, emotional business like wrestling, plans can fall apart in one night, as they did on this night. Sabu had gotten a lucrative offer to wrestle in Japan, on the same date as the April ECW show. Sabu was not particularly thrilled about being teamed with Tazz. They legitimately hated each other. “He did not like teaming with Tazz,” Heyman says. “He hated it. They didn’t get along.

“Sabu wanted me to pull him out of the tag team, and I said as soon as the three-way dance is over, I’ll do it, but I can’t pull you out now,” Heyman reports. “There is no way. This three-way dance is going to be the hottest tape we ever had. He said, ‘Let’s shoot an injury angle.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t want to shoot an injury angle. I am the one that is giving you a full-time living, and we’re building something together here. We are about to explode with the biggest tape selling we ever had.’ Sabu had a choice to make. He chose to go to Japan. He called me from Japan on Friday and said, ‘Look, I just want to let you know I am here. You run four- or five-hour shows. Just hold that show for me.’ He was talking about making a flight right after his match and coming home. He said, ‘I get in at 11
P.M
., and once I clear customs, I’ll be at the arena by midnight. You can do a four-hour show. Just buy me some time, and I’ll do it.’ I said, ‘I can’t take that risk. What if you take two hours to clear customs? And who says you are going to make that flight? I can’t risk it.’ I said that he had to get back on the plane now. He said, ‘I can’t do that.’ Nobody knew what I was going to do.