The Life & Times of Steven Richards

When one thinks back to the glory days of Extreme Championship Wrestling, one also thinks of the many great stars that graced Paul Heyman's renegade company - Raven, Rhyno, Tazz, the Sandman, the Dudleys, and many more. But one man who, more often than not, tends to get overlooked is Steven Richards.

For most of his time in ECW, Richards served many in the role of sidekick, often being teamed with the likes of Raven, or the Blue Meanie in the legendary Blue World Order, one of the best wrestling parodies of the nineties. But the fact that he was very often another guy's stool pigeon meant he never really had the chance to shine.

It was pretty much the same when he first arrived in the WWE a few years back. After a brief stint in WCW, and a knee injury that nearly ended his career, Richards turned up in McMahon land, and looked totally lost. For most of the time, he would be seen in the background when other things happened, or, as he did in ECW, he would parody other stars, as well as reuniting with the Blue Meanie. But the fact that he was hardly being used was a great shame.

Around the same time, the WWE were having trouble with the Parents Television Council. The PTC were giving the television censors a hard time because of the WWE's programme content. They claimed the so-called Attitude era was harming America's youth, and the WWE's portrayal of certain characters was doing a great deal of damage to those companies who purchased advertising segments during the WWE's television shows.

Although the WWE would later go on to win the impending court case against the PTC, it didn't stop the creative team from coming up with their own answer to the PTC - the Right To Censor - or RTC. However, if this new heel faction was ever going to succeed, it needed a spokesman, someone who was competent on the microphone, who could get the RTC's message across clearly and strongly. That man was Steven Richards.

With a short hair cut and dressed in a white shirt and black tie, Richards' new character went on a verbal rampage against the WWE, criticising everything from programme content to the wrestler's themselves. The RTC faction promised a great deal, and could have been a great deal better - if the wrestlers chosen for the faction had themselves been better.

Bull Buchanan had previously served in another faction - the Truth Commission, which had bombed and was discarded when the mighty Kurrgen became a freak and formed the Oddities. A brief stint as the Big Boss Man's sidekick also did nothing for him, mainly because of the fans dislike for the Boss Man. Buchanan soon swapped the Boss Man's flack jacket for the RTC's shirt and tie, but it still did nothing for him.

Charles Wright had finally succeeded in the WWE has the Godfather, the federation's fun-loving, good-time guy. Having largely failed as the voodoo-loving Papa Shango, and as Kama Mustafa, the ultimate fighting machine who later joined Farooq's Nation of Domination, Wright struck gold as the WWE's fun-loving, good-time guy, coming down to the ring in garishly coloured outfits and accompanied by an ever growing collection of lovely ladies. At a time when the WWE used sex to sell their product, the Godfather character fitted in perfectly at the time. However, when the RTC was formed, he became one of their first targets, and it wasn't long before he was swapping his garish garments for the RTC's shirt and tie, and changing his name to the Goodfather.

At the height of the Attitude era, Shawn Morley had been tearing up a storm with his Val Venis porn-star character. Like the Godfather, the character was perfect for the times. He was a former Intercontinental Champion who had enjoyed a tremendous amount of success with high-profile feuds against Goldust and Taka Michinoku's Kai-En-Tai faction. However, after a while, the character had become a little stale, and for story line purposes, he was the perfect target for Richards' brand of brainwashing.

Ivory was at the time the best women's wrestler in the company. Having held the women's title on a number of occasions, the RTC needed a woman who would rebel against the type of female athlete the WWE were trying to portray - emphasising T&A over in-ring wrestling skill. Ivory swapped her somewhat skimpy ring outfits for a white blouse and long-skirt, and as someone who was also competent on the microphone, she was the perfect foil for Richards.

The RTC concept promised much. In Richards they had the perfect spokesman, a man who knew his ring craft well, and when it was called for, could play the cowardly, managerial type, the likes of which hadn't been seen in the WWE since the heyday of Bobby Heenan or Jimmy Hart. However, the inclusion of Buchanan and the Goodfather probably hurt the group's chances of ever making it big.

Despite showing some flashes of brilliance at times, Buchanan was never going to get over with the fans, while the Goodfather was, in the opinion of many, a step backwards for Wright's career. Fans wanted to see him dancing to the ring and having a good time. They didn't want him preaching to them about abstinence.

When Buchanan and the Goodfather captured the tag-team championship from the Hardy Boys, many fans scratched their heads. As a team, the Hardys were far superior, and at the time, there were a number of other teams who would have made better tag-team champions. Yet the creative bods insisted on giving the belts to a team that were falling flat on their faces.

Although the RTC enjoyed fleeting moments of success in short feuds and altercations with the Rock and Billy Gunn, it is events outside the ring that possibly killed the idea. It was Jerry Lawler's idea that his then-wife, Stacy "The Cat" Carter, be placed with the group. At the time Carter was well-known for taking the majority of her clothes off, and was the fist women ever to show her "puppies" on live WWE pay-per-view. Having Carter virtually kidnapped and forced into the group would have made for good television, but at the same time, Carter was becoming a pain in the backside backstage, and Vince McMahon had no choice but to release Carter from her contract. Showing a great deal of loyalty to his wife, Lawler walked as well. It wasn't long before the RTC curled up it's tootsies.

The Right To Censor concept probably failed because of the choice of it's members. Richards was a more than capable leader of the group. He was perfect for the role. However, Buchanan and the Goodfather were never anything more than lower mid-card talent, who were never going to get over in this gimmick. Val Venis could have gone onto greater things, but like the Goodfather, the fans wanted to see the old Val, and not this version of the Big Valbowski.

At the time, there were a great number of other wrestlers who would have been better as members of the RTC. This faction had great promise, and at a time when the WWE was taking a great deal of heat over it's product content, if more high-profile names had been added to the group, then it's entirely possible that an RTC member could have actually become a top contender for the WWE title. This would have done far more the group as a whole.


But it was never meant to be. After the Cartler/Lawler situation, the RTC never recovered. The group was disbanded, and it's members went separate ways. The promising WWE career of Steven Richards was once again at a standstill.

With the demise of the Right To Censor faction, Steven Richards was lost in the shuffle. With nothing to help the fans take notice of him, Steven returned to full-time action, but was relegated to the weekend shows. He hardly made an appearance on Raw or Smackdown.

Then something happened that could have helped his career. When the WWE purchased WCW, their original plan was to set up their former rival as a separate entity. When they couldn't get a television contract for them, WCW stars began to turn up on WWE programming, and the feud that wrestling fans had been craving for years was finally on.

The only problem being that at it's inception, the plan fell flat on it's face. Various things meant that the fans just weren't what McMahon-brand WCW. Hardly anyone took WCW seriously. There were no standout stars. Those invading the WWE were nothing more than WCW mid-carders. How could they be taken seriously against the top-guns of the WWE, men McMahon had made superstars out of?

Vince McMahon soon realised this. With a massive WWE v WCW pay-per-view planned, he needed something big. Many of WCW's big guns, such as Kevin Nash, Lex Luger, Sting and Scott Steiner were sitting at home collecting their big, fat, Time Warner paycheques. Attempts to sign Bill Goldberg and Eric Bischoff failed miserably. Bischoff knew that at the time McMahon would do nothing but make him a laughing stock. It was a short-term, quick-fix solution, and neither Bischoff or Goldberg wanted anything to do with it.

There was just one thing that McMahon could do. Bring back ECW.

On one magical edition of Raw just a couple of weeks before the Invasion pay-per-view, it happened. During a tag-team match pitting Chris Jericho & Kane against Lance Storm and Mike Awesome, WCW's mid-carders came down to interfere. They were soon followed by a group of WWE superstars. The crowd went wild as the likes of Tazz, Raven, the Dudleys and Rhyno kicked the asses of their counterparts. Then it happened. Jericho and Kane were then attacked by their comrades. Storm and Awesome soon joined in the assault, and to everyone's surprise, Tommy Dreamer and Rob Van Dam came sprinting in through the crowd, as a smiling Paul Heyman got up from his commentary position, got into the ring, and announced that the Invasion had just got a little extreme. ECW had returned.

That night Vince and Shane, who was the "owner" of WCW, came up with a plan to get rid of their mutual enemies. As five WWE and five WCW stars prepared for a massive twenty man tag, it soon became apparent that Vince was getting screwed. Heyman led his ECW troops through the crowd, and joined with their WCW counterparts to attack the WWE stars. The Alliance had been formed. With Stephanie McMahon unveiled as the new owner of ECW, ECW's former top stars gave the ailing Invasion a much needed boost.

Steven Richards was nowhere to be seen. The man who had made his name as a sidekick to many in the heyday of ECW was absent. However, because the fans were enthralled by the new angle the Invasion offered them, hardly anyone noticed that Richards wasn't around.

Richards eventually joined the Alliance, but his initial momentum didn't last long, again because of circumstances outside the ring. In the first few months of the Invasion, Kane and the Undertaker had been moved to the tag-team division, where they held both the WWE and WCW tag-team titles. Having seen off the challenge of Diamond Dallas Page and Chris Kanyon, the Undertaker persuaded Vince McMahon to hire his old friends, Bryan Adams and Brian Clark, who had achieved a great deal of success as the Kronik tag-team in the last couple of years of WCW. Clark and Adams began their WWE career by attacking the Undertaker and Kane, and it was revealed that Steven Richards had orchestrated the attack, and he began to act as their manager.

But at the big pay-per-view match, everything fell apart. The match between the Brothers of Destruction and Kronik literally fell apart at the seams. It was panned by everyone, especially the powers-that-be. Unhappy with the dead weight he had literally been talked into hiring, McMahon put forward the idea that both Adams and Clark should relocate to Ohio Valley Wrestling, the WWE's training ground. The big men balked at the idea, because in their minds, they didn't need any extra training. Adams was in his fourth stint as a McMahon employee. He was a former tag-team champion. Clark had achieved a degree of success as Adam Bomb almost ten years previously. It wasn't long before Kronik left the company, leaving Richards without a ship to steer.

Richards remained as part of the Alliance, but he had nothing to do. When the Alliance lost the war with the WWE the following November, Richards' career wasn't going anywhere.

Then along came Victoria.

Victoria had last been seen working in the WWE as one of the Godfather's ho's. Her most prominent role had been during the break-up of Eddie Guerrero and Chyna. Victoria was cited as one of the women Eddie had cheated with in the shower. Realising that she had great promise, the WWE sent her down to Ohio for training under the watchful eye of Jim Cornette and Danny Advise. As the Queen Victoria, she went down a storm before being called up to the big leagues and being called back to the big leagues, and put into a high-profile feud with WWE Women's Champion Trash Starts.

But the psycho-queen that Victoria had become needed someone to play off. Once again, Richards was called upon to play the sidekick, and putting behind the previous characters he had played, Richards became the perfect foil for Victoria, adopting aspects of her personality as the WWE gave the fans a women's feud that was well conceived and well written.

While adopting this role, Richards began to wrestle more and more, although he was still mainly competing on the weekend show circuit. Finally putting the knee and neck injuries behind him, injuries that almost finished his career, Richards won rave reviews for his matches.

With the brand extension that split the WWE into two different companies, the Raw brand was given the Sunday Night Heat show. At first the show seemed rudderless, without a captain to give the orders, but after a while, as Raw gained it's own General Manager, Richards given the role as Heat General Manager, as Sunday Night Heat became Stevie Night Heat.

With Victoria now acting as his sidekick, Richards seemed in his element. The microphone skills he had shown in ECW and as the leader of the RTC were now being shown again. Richards was earning the plaudits from the fans, and finally getting the recognition he deserved, even though he wasn't a part of the major shows.

But as with many things before, the WWE canned an angle that was proving to be successful. Richards was gaining something of a cult following on Heat, but the angle was soon dropped.

Recently, Richards was put up against Test in a series or matches that played out over Heat and Raw. With Victoria by his side, cheering him on, Richards showed what he was capable of in this entertaining series, which culminated in a win for Richards on Raw. However, with Victoria making another run at the women's title, it's unclear exactly what the WWE plans for the future of Steven Richards.

Richards certainly has the skills, both in the ring and on the microphone, to at least get as high as Intercontinental title level. But as with many wrestlers these days, while many fans agree that Richards certainly has what it takes to achieve success in the WWE, it's not up to the fans, it's up to the powers-that-be in the WWE. They often see things that we mere mortals sometimes miss.