Movie Review // Nevermore: The Raven Effect (2025)

  Growing up, I became a fan of professional wrestling the most while watching ECW.  I had attended a bunch of WWE shows, but something about ECW always felt different.  One of the wrestlers in ECW who always meant the most to me was Raven because he used the physical side of wrestling, the violence which came with the extreme to his advantage in a way that also messed with your mind.  Many wrestlers had that mindset of just being tough, going out there and kicking ass- and that worked.  But Raven was always more than that.  He'd get into your head.  And I loved every second of every minute I ever saw him.

When I found out there was going to be a documentary made about the life and career of Raven, I knew I had to see it.  This film covers the life of Raven from before he got into wrestling up until his most recent run in MLW, which it seems will quite possibly be his last on screen type of role.  Raven is just that wrestler who is bigger than any promotion, as I followed him from ECW to WCW to WWE to TNA.  During the Monday Night Wars, I was a Stone Cold guy so I always chose that side over WCW, but Raven was the first wrestler to show up in WCW that made me also watch WCW at that time.

There are very few people within professional wrestling who have the mind for it.  Some people will claim that they do, and other people will say that someone has it, but to truly have it, and to really prove that with what you're doing in the ring (and outside of it) takes a lot.  I'm just not sure anyone else has that same sort of intellect for professional wrestling or life in general that Raven does and to see that highlighted in this film is also something I feel like the wrestling community as a whole needs to be discussing still, hundreds of years from now.

My two favorite Raven facts (not mentioned in this by the way) are that Raven was the only wrestler who went from ECW to WCW to WWE to TNA and somehow managed to get action figures while in all of those companies (Though this film does show Raven on a WCW video game, which is just as neat)  My other fun fact is not so much a fact but an experience.  Back when I was a little mark, in my pre-teens, I didn't know how the wrestling business worked but I found out quickly that it was pre-determined.

We used to have the New Haven Coliseum and the Hartford Civic Center here, and being that WWE was headquartered in Connecticut, there were always house shows here.   It felt like I was going to see WWE live at least twice a year for quite some time.  So, on one show I remember The Quebecers coming out with Johnny 'Polo and they had a tag match against a team I can't remember.  One of The Quebecers was "injured" however, so they had to sit out of the match and to his dismay, the then Johnny Polo had to step in and wrestle.  To me, this was like a Harvey Wippleman wrestling because you just didn't think managers were wrestlers- at least I didn't at that age.

Well, the internet eventually came around during the ECW days, so years later when I had learned Raven and Johnny Polo were the same guy my mind immediately went to "That was why he was in that match!"  But watching this film you learn that Raven wanted to be wrestling while in WWE at that time but they just had him as a manager for some reason instead.  In that same way that grunge launched an entire movement in the 1990's, so did ECW for the landscape of professional wrestling.  And none of that plays out the way that it does or as big as it does without Raven.  Tommy Dreamer was like Pearl Jam, Raven is like Nirvana.  

I purchased this film on Blu-Ray through Vinegar Syndrome here :::

https://vinegarsyndrome.com/products/nevermore-the-raven-effect?_pos=1&_psq=raven&_ss=e&_v=1.0