| abstract | - Raven (real name Scott Levy, born in 1964) is a professional wrestler who is best known for his time in virtually every mainstream Professional Wrestling promotion (WWE, WCW, ECW, TNA, and Ring of Honor). His career started in 1988. After brief runs in WCW and WWF as "Scotty Flamingo" and "Johnny Polo", Levy rose to fame in ECW as Raven, a brooding sociopath with a penchant for manipulating the weak-willed into doing his bidding. Raven's ECW run was marked by two long, brutal, and sometimes controversial feuds -- with Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman -- and two ECW World Championship reigns. He's credited with popularizing the wearing of street clothes during matches (his typical outfit being a pair of cut-off jeans, a flannel shirt, and a leather jacket -- the popular Grunge look). His promos were dark and nihilistic, and he was followed by a stable of wrestlers known as "Raven's Nest", which at different points included such wrestlers as the Pitbulls, members of the Dudley family, longtime lackey Stevie Richards, and even Cactus Jack. In 1997, Raven left ECW and returned to WCW, where he formed "The Flock", a variant of his ECW group which was filled with numerous misfits -- including Perry Saturn, Billy Kidman, and (once again) Stevie Richards -- who also adopted a grunge look. While still popular, The Flock wasn't as successful in the ring as Raven's ECW stable, and dissent within the ranks eventually caused its dissolution. During his time in WCW, Raven often competed in the Raven's Rules Match -- which basically meant any match Raven participated in was a hardcore match -- and brought some of ECW's signature hardcore violence into the product. Raven returned to ECW in 1999, then joined the WWF in 2000. He would win the WWE Hardcore Championship 27 times, but never achieve anything approaching the success he found in ECW -- and due to a lawsuit over WWE's classification of wrestlers as "independent contractors", Raven (and the other wrestlers involved in the lawsuit) became persona non grata in WWE. Following his departure from WWE, Raven spent the next seven years performing on-and-off in TNA and ROH -- and even managed to win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in this time period.
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