“What planet are you from?” – host Sean Oliver to Raven after he finishes laying out his plans for a rebooked ECW with Hall & Nash joining the home of hardcore, instead of going to WCW 1996.
KayfabeCommentaries.com’s latest release “Guest Booker with Raven” features the former ECW icon booking ECW beginning of June of 1996 with the stipulation being that Scott Hall and Kevin Nash come to ECW instead of WCW. As implausible as that idea sounds, Raven runs with it and turns in the most insanely detailed booking clinic I’ve ever seen on DVD.
Things begin innocently enough with host Sean Oliver manning the dry-erase board and laying out Raven’s plans for ECW with Nash & Hall coming into the company. Raven starts off by saying that since ECW featured a team atmosphere backstage, he believed Hall & Nash would come in and coexist with everyone in the locker room. The long-term plan according to Raven is to get the belt off of himself and put it on Hall, which will lead to ECW’s first PPV in April of 1997 that he will headline with ECW Champion Scott Hall taking on Terry Funk. Little did I know the road between June and April were going to be paved in meticulous detail by Raven, who lays things out with an insane rapid-fire delivery.
The first order of business is to bring in Hall as a babyface first before Nash comes in and book him right away in a feud with Raven and the Flock. Raven’s idea for Hall to get over with the ECW crowd is to have him discuss how he didn’t get a fair shot from WWE management and was run over by the red, white, and blue bus, which is a reference to Lex Lugar. He would then tell the fans he felt ECW was the place where the game wouldn’t be rigged. I’m not sure how well this would have gone over with the ECW crowd, but it sounds like the type of thing the fans in the ECW arena would enjoy hearing.
Raven begins booking month by month with graphics appearing on the screen to help the viewer keeps track of his plans, which becomes impossible by the end of this release. He uses three weeks of television to prop up each of the big shows at the end of the month at the ECW arena for the sake of this release, as that’s not how ECW actually operated back in 1996 when it was on a three week cycle of shows at the ECW arena.
Although Raven says he wouldn’t want to be the center of attention while holding the title as booker, he is the main focus of much of the buildup leading to ECW first PPV in April of 1997 and the program for Funk comes off as almost an afterthought, as he decides to have Hall chase him for several months with Nash bulldozing some heavyweights in Ravens faction on the undercard.
The amount of detail Raven puts into booking the program centering on him, Hall, Nash, and later X-Pac is incredible. Raven talks about specific promos, in-ring promos, angles, and everything in-between to set up the big shows, which ultimately lead into the big angles for the next month. At one point after going through three months of booking, Raven stops and asks Oliver a question about a small detail from an angle he laid out earlier. Oliver gets this blank stare on his face and question marks pop up on the screen over his head, which was really funny.
Raven ends up kicking Oliver out of his chair and attacks the white board with his black marker. He hilarious talks about how he’s just talking from his stream of conscience, but also has more ideas in the back of his head. In fact, Raven doesn’t stop talking from that point on. He also talks about how hungry he is and wonders aloud how much time they have left. Oliver simply kicks up his feet on the coffee table in the room and puts his hands behind his head as a maniacal Raven has at it and lays out all the plans for Funk to be the centerpiece for the April PPV in a match against Hall 20 years from the day he last won a heavyweight championship.
By the time Raven gets to April of 1997, he’s got some really good programs going with Tommy Dreamer, X Pac, Kevin Nash, and has removed himself from the scene after his feud with Hall ends in a cage match. The shoot winds down and Raven’s food arrives and he says that fans will have to wait for a pt. 2 to get more details! The end credits feature some hilarious footage of Raven in the studio after he finished what can only be described as his booking rant.
Overall recommendation: I give this release a high recommendation. It’s not too often that you get to hear someone with a great mind for wrestling go into this much detail about booking long-term in this amount of detail. No matter how implausible the idea of Hall & Nash going into ECW in 1996 and getting over seems, Raven’s plans are fascinating to listen to as they unfold. He just doesn’t stop until he finally has to in order to eat. One thing that struck me while watching this was how in the world does TNA have guys like Raven in the company and not let them have a shot at booking the company. Raven clearly has a great mind for wrestling and Kayfabecommentaries once again has found away to take someone who you would think has said all they could possibly say on dozens of shoot interviews and make them fresh again.
Derek Burgan will join me tomorrow on the Radican Audio show at PWTorch.com/members to review this release. You can purchase this release at Kayfabecommentaries.com.
LATEST PRO WRESTLING TORCH NEWSLETTER #1037 (16 PAGES)
This issue begins with a cover story on the annoucement on Raw that Mike Adamle is the new Raw G.M... Wade Keller's BBL features a number of other shocking G.M. possibilities for WWE to consider... Page 2 Buzz with Jason Powell features his exclusive insider news galore... Pat McNeill continues his series of articles reviewing the history of Summerslam... Bruce Mitchell continues his series of Ric Flair DVD Liner Notes with a focus on "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers htis week... Part four of the "Torch Talk" with Doug Basham... Sean Radican reviews in detail the ROH PPV before it's offered nationally on PPV... Plus the Torch Newswire, Top Five Stories, reports on Raw, Smackdown, and Impact, and more......
