Pro-wrestling legend Raven was a recent guest on the Scheduled For Two Falls podcast to discuss a variety of subjects, including his relationship with Shane McMahon, and how them going out all the time got him some heat with Vince McMahon. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
Looks back on his Johnny Polo gimmick during his WWE run:
“That was a lot of fun. But it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing, which is why I quit. Because they were going to, at that point — it’s not that I had any problem with Johnny Polo. I think I did a great job with the character. I think I made him funny as hell. But it’s not what I wanted to be or do and it’s just not me. One day Vince comes up to me and he goes, ‘You know, I’m sensing a disconnect when I’m watching you, you’re really not Johnny Polo.’ I go, ‘I never was.’ Shane McMahon should have been Johnny Polo. That’s the perfect guy to play the character. I just played him as Scotty Flamingo or Scotty the Body. I just played him as a funny guy who happened to be the thing. But my speech pattern is not Connecticut, it’s not well-bred. My speech pattern sounds like a thug. I don’t sound or look like that.”
How he used to be very close with Shane McMahon and how he got heat from Vince because of it:
“Yeah yeah, no that’s true. Me and Shane used to be really tight. You know, we drifted apart. But yeah, I had him out, he’d go out with me every night. Not every night, because you know, he couldn’t. But yeah, that was all true. Big heat with Vince and Linda over it. And the funny thing about it is, the boys were thinking that I was kissing Shane’s ass and trying to help my my career. But I wasn’t, I was actually killing my career, because it was giving me heat.”
(H/T and transcribed by 411 Mania)