Maven discusses preferring being on the WWE Raw brand as opposed to WWE SmackDown and looks back on the night that he was not only the WWE Raw General Manager but wrestled in the main event of the show against Triple H for the World Heavyweight Championship.
Maven may have only had four years in WWE, but he had a wealth of experiences throughout his tenure that he now discusses regularly via his YouTube channel.
His most recent video discusses the differences between being a Superstar on WWE Raw or WWE SmackDown during the early stages of the first brand split from 2002 to 2005. For the most part, Maven says he preferred to be on Monday Night Raw as the backstage environment showed the red brand ran a tighter ship than SmackDown at the time.
"I'll be perfectly honest. For me, I was ecstatic when they moved me over to Raw. I always appreciated and I always enjoyed a live atmosphere better. Things just felt different backstage. Things felt crisper, it felt like a tighter-running ship, you could definitely see that more emphasis and more importance was placed on timing, getting things done in their proper time," he said.
On the November 15, 2004 episode of WWE Monday Night Raw, Maven got to experience being front and center as he was the General Manager for the night per the stipulation of him being on the winning team of the Survivor Series 2004 main event, where he teamed with Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, and Randy Orton against Snitsky, Batista, Edge, and Triple H.
Being the GM of Monday Night Raw, and subsequently wrestling Triple H for the World Heavyweight Championship in the main event of the same episode, meant that the inaugural winner of WWE Tough Enough was in many more segments on live TV than he was used to. Maven says that his ability to swim instead of sink in a live environment made the praise he received from Vince McMahon at the end of the night all the more gratifying.
"I remember the night that I was the Raw General Manager. It was in Indianapolis and I was involved in I want to say probably ten or eleven segments of that night. That was ten or eleven more segments than I was normally in. So I had to learn lines, I had to learn staging, I had to learn promos. I had to also have my match with Hunter. I was literally moving, working, and prepping the entire day. That night, at the end of that night, when I got through gorilla, and immediately saw Vince and he gave me his approval and told me, 'Amazing job,' it meant so much more. Why? Not because it was coming from Vince. Of course, it was great hearing it from Vince, but because it happened on a live show. There was literally no room, zero room for air, and knowing that I was able to perform in a live environment like that, it felt so good."
Elsewhere on his YouTube channel, Maven has spoken about potentially becoming the WWE Intercontinental Champion during his time on Monday Night Raw, but ultimately, he decided that he wasn't ready. Learn more here.
One of the people that Maven worked with during his time in WWE was Shawn Michaels and recently, Maven reflected on his time working with HBK. Read more here.
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