Raven Thinks Hardcore Matches Catch A Bad Rap Due To Lazy Plunder

As an icon of hardcore wrestling, Raven has weighed the current crop of deathmatch and hardcore wrestlers in the balance and has found them wanting.

During his guest host stint on "The Snake Pit," Raven explained that he always liked the creative freedom that the lack of rules and endless amount of props that hardcore wrestling allowed, but that it's an easy genre for people to get lazy. 

"This is why hardcore gets a bad name because most guys just pick up a chair or a table or a pot and a pan and they just hit each other with it and the other guy hits him back — and back and forth and nobody sells for any length of time," Raven explained. "Whereas for me, drop toeholding a guy on a chair is so much more creative than hitting him with a chair." 

Raven went on to reminisce about a match he had with Tommy Dreamer, where he wound up on the receiving end of some creative violence from "The Innovator of Violence."

"Dreamer, he's more beat up than I am, and he's laying by the apron and Beulah [McGillicutty] tapes a frying pan to his shin," Raven explained. According to the former Flock leader, Dreamer and Beulah made sure to tape the pan sneakily to go unnoticed. "He throws a kick with the other leg and I catch it, and he enzuigiris me with the frying pan taped to his shin," Raven shared excitedly. "How clever is that? I love that s***!" 

According to the former ECW Champion, there's more room to "make a creative bouillabaisse" in hardcore wrestling, comparing it to a three-way dance or a tag match, as the props and stipulation add as much to the match as another competitor.