This is a script for a video on my YouTube channel. You can find the full video Here.
The moment I'm referring to took place on the September 17th 2003 weekly TNA pay per view, and was part of a long and violent feud between Raven and his group known as the Gathering, which included Julio Dinero, CM Punk and Alexis Laree now known as Mickie James, and the Disciples of the New Church led by Father James Mitchell. The New Church at this time included Shane Douglas, Brian Lee, Slash, Sinn who was briefly on Smackdown as Kizarny, and later another member who'll become relevant later. Behind the scenes Mitchell and Raven had known each other since their ECW days, where Mitchell worked in the latter years of the company as the Sinister Minister
For some context on their feud, the two factions would battle in all kinds of matches, notably Ravens signature Clockwork Orange House of fun match, where weapons would hang around the sides of the ring from a chain. At the same time Raven was still vying to achieve his dream, the reason for him even coming to TNA, the NWA World championship. In late August he would defeat New Church member Shane Douglas to earn a shot against then champion AJ Styles, which would take place on August 27th 2003. Multiple times in the match it looked like Raven was going to win, but after thwarting run ins from Slash and Sinn, a low blow from Shane Douglas followed by a Styles Clash was enough to screw Raven out of his opportunity. A wild brawl erupts with various more run ins while James Mitchell cackles on the stage, having achieved his goal.
The brawl would lead to TNA's first version of War Games by another name held on the following weeks event, called Wednesday Bloody Wednesday, in which Raven would team with America's Most Wanted, D'Lo Brown and Jeff Jarrett to defeat his rival Shane Douglas, AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, Simon Diamond and Johnny Swinger. While Jarrett would pin Styles for the win, absolutely nothing would be resolved as many more wrestlers would run down and create more chaos post match.
This brings us to September 17th, and the hair versus hair match with Shane Douglas. This was actually the third singles match in TNA between the two, with Raven winning the first match on August 13th, and again the following week to earn the World title match with AJ Styles. The match itself for the most part, is a slow paced, dare I say unremarkable brawl between the two ECW veterans, or it was, until mid match Shane begins puking in the ring, yet somehow continues wrestling. I'll be honest, I totally forgot about this until rewatching the match for this video. Another weird point in the match comes a little earlier when Shane offers his hand with Raven's blood on it to a woman on the front row. Thats not the weird part, well it is, but what I mean is the woman turned out to be the future TNA star Angelina Love, who had already started her wrestling career by that point, but wouldn't join the TNA roster full time until 2007 when the Knockouts division would be formed. When it looked like Raven might pin Douglas, Slash would pull the referee out, then Sinn would interfere too, but both would be chased away by CM Punk and Dinero. Just as it looked like the sides were even and Raven was about to win again, the lights would go out in the TNA Asylum, and when they came back on the mystery man I mentioned earlier was in the ring, and revealed himself to be Vampiro. Making his first appearance in TNA, Vampiro would hit Raven with a DDT, allowing Shane to get the win.
Now we get to the really gruesome part, as Raven per the stipulation would willingly sit in a chair, and allow Jim Mitchell to shave his head. Herein would lie the problem, as Jim would proceed to use the wrong end of the clippers, cutting into Ravens head, and effectively scalping him. Initially, while Raven is wincing in pain you might have thought he was selling pain, or maybe trying to convey his humiliation, but when blood starts to pour down his head it then becomes clear that something has gone very wrong. The drama of the situation is elevated by Mike Tenay and Don West on commentary showing their disgust. Don eventually throws his headset down and walks away, while Mike Tenay continues with one of his most famous lines: "This is BS, This sucks, I've lost my objectivity, and I don't give a damn!" Incidentally, how he maintained that same objectivity through some things in the Russo years is beyond me...
In a 2003 shoot interview with Wrestling Epicenter, Mitchell explained what had actually gone wrong, noting that the clippers he was using were actually meant for sheering sheep, and in James' own words, "they looked like shark teeth." The reason for this as explained by Raven in an interview is that due to the sweat in wrestlers hair by the end of a match, a normal razor wouldn't have been enough, so the sheep clippers were used. This claim can maybe be backed up by another hair vs hair match that took place at Summerslam 1998. On that night Jeff Jarrett faced the dubious honour, having lost to X-Pac. Post match X-Pac can be seen struggling to actually cut Jarrett's hair with the razor, so he instead cut lumps off his head with scissors until the segment ran long enough. Upon noticing the blood pouring from Raven's head, James chose to stay in character and keep going, stating afterwards "I'm peeling his scalp off, but what are you going to do? Are you going to go oop's I'm sorry? Or are you going to act like a sadistic motherfucker and start digging in?" Watching the footage back however, he realised how bad a mistake he had made, and even expected Raven's full wrath backstage. While this had to be an excruciating experience for Raven, Mitchell noted that Raven seemed to at least realise that "it made for great TV", and it became the catalyst for Raven in future weeks to get his full revenge, even on Mitchell.
From here the feud would only get even more vicious. Two weeks later The Gathering would defeat Douglas, Slash and Sinn in a Dog Collar match. Post match though, the New Church would use the collars to attempt to hang Raven, Punk and Dinero.
On October 1st the following week, Raven would vow to eliminate the New Church members one by one until only Mitchell remained. This is where Shane Douglas would quietly disappear from the storyline, as he would begin his own mission to find a new Franchise, who would turn out to be Michael Shane, cousin of Shawn Michaels as TNA liked to remind us. In following weeks he would honour his word, as he would defeat and take out Sinn on October 8th. Vampiro would try to hang Raven again but would Punk and Dinero would save him. The next week in a rather bizarre move given that the Gathering saved him from being hung, Raven tells Punk and Dinero that he needs complete the rest of his quest on his own. This would eventually come back to bite Raven, as the Gathering would turn on Raven in December 2003, siding with James Mitchell upon his return.
On October 22nd Raven would continue his quest by defeating Slash in a dog collar match, and then hanging him, thus taking him out too. Vampiro and Mitchell attack Raven after but are chased away by Punk DInero, which Raven is clearly not happy about.
On October 29th Raven would get his final revenge on Vampiro in a the match all this hanging was building up to, the Gallows of retribution match, where the only way to win was to hang your opponent using a noose and the top rope, which to my knowlege hasn't been done ever again.
Finally on November 5th 2003, Raven would finally get his hands on Father James Mitchell in a last man standing match. If you're familiar with the term to give someone a 'reciept' in wrestling, whats very much what this feels like, as Mitchell takes an absolute beating from Raven, possibly to make up for the scalping incident. The match would last just five minutes, but in it Mitchell would bleed buckets. Mercifully, the story would end here, as by this point the violence had escalated about as much as it could go.
TNA has had it's share of violent moments and feuds, especially in the following years when Abyss would ramp things up even further, but the Raven vs New Church story in a way set the tone for how violent things could get, both planned and in real life. These days working for MLW as a manager of his latest faction, the Calling, Raven was back then one of NWA TNA's biggest stars. One of TNA's early big pay per views was headlined by his first shot at NWA World champion Jeff Jarrett, but it would take until 2005 for Raven to eventually capture that gold. I wonder how many still appreciate the impact Raven had back in those years, and even before then in ECW. The grunge aesthetic, the riddle like promos, and the young careers he had an influence on? Will we see another feud quite like his with the New Church, Nevermore.
James Mitchell interview 50 mins http://www.wrestlingepicenter.com/shows/FatherJames/father.mp3
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