Stevie Richards, part 3

Richards was traded to SmackDown! on June 30, 2005 and reprised the bWo group with Nova and The Blue Meanie. At the Great American Bash, the bWo lost to The Mexicools in a six-man tag team match.

Richards went on to become the main eventer of WWE Velocity and began slowly dropping the bWo gimmick as he jobbed to the likes of Hardcore Holly, Vito, and Booker T. After a while Steven Richards would not be used on WWE SmackDown! or even WWE Velocity, disappearing for over half a year. Richards made his return to the ring during an 18-Man pre-show Battle Royal before WrestleMania 22.

Shortly after the introduction of the ECW brand in 2006, Richards left the SmackDown! brand to join the ECW brand, starting with the WWE vs. ECW Head to Head show on June 7, 2006. Richards went on to appear on ECW's weekly show under his old ring name of Stevie Richards, though his TitanTron video and the on-screen display would still refer to him as Steven.

Richards soon returned to his heel persona, selling out the other ECW Originals and siding with the newer stars. He picked up his first win on ECW's weekly show on September 5, 2006, against Balls Mahoney, after interference from Kevin Thorn, who was feuding with Mahoney at the time.

Richards was part of the new ECW brand's first pay-per-view, December to Dismember, defeating Rene Dupree in a pre-PPV dark match. At WWE One Night Stand 2007, he served as a lumberjack in the Kane vs. Mark Henry match.

Richards wrestled CM Punk six times from February to July 2007, losing each time. In mid-2007, Richards turned face again due to fan reaction, and teamed with Tommy Dreamer against the New Breed on house shows, replacing The Sandman (who was drafted to RAW) in the ECW Originals.

On July 24, Richards defeated Thorn in an upset after reversing a crucifix powerbomb into a backslide pin. This was Richards' first victory on WWE television since September 2006. A week later a re-match took place throughout which Richards was dominated, however he defeated Thorn once again via roll-up. On August 7, he got ambushed by Thorn while giving an interview backstage. He would once again defeat Thorn on August 14 by DQ after the referee declared a disqualification when Thorn continued to massively "destroy" Richards after Thorn had already won. He would then get revenge by ambushing Thorn while giving an interview the next week. Their feud would continue with Richards teaming up with Dreamer and CM Punk on different occasions against Thorn and Elijah Burke with Richards losing and winning a match. Richards was eliminated from the Elimination Chase for the ECW Championship on the September 18 edition of ECW. He was then absent from WWE programming due to having throat surgery.

Almost 5 months later, Richards made his return to ECW on February 12, 2008, defeating a jobber with his signature Stevie-T.

Stevie Richards, part 2

Stevie Richards, with the bWo, was one of the first ECW performers to perform on WWF programming, during a cross-promotional appearance.

In 1999, Richards went to the WWF in a full-time capacity. He would make his WWF debut on the August 15, 1999 episode of Sunday Night HEAT. After briefly using the Dude Love persona (he asked Mick Foley if he could use it and Foley agreed), being associated with the Dudley Boyz, bringing back the mocking gimmick, and teaming up with his old partner Blue Meanie, Richards got a haircut and formed a heel stable called Right to Censor (based on the WWF's then problems with the Parents Television Council organization). He changed his name to Steven Richards and became a manager for the many wrestlers that he recruited. When Chyna was featured in Playboy magazine, Richards demanded a match between Chyna's associate Eddie Guerrero and Val Venis. After Chyna had depantsed Richards leaving him in his white socks and blue briefs, costing Venis the match, Richards and his stable feuded against her.

Soon after the Right to Censor stable broke up, Richards joined The Alliance as the manager of KroniK briefly before Kronik was released. Richards remained on the brand's "B" shows until Team Alliance lost at Survivor Series 2001. Richards was fired along with the rest of the alliance roster by Vince McMahon until Ric Flair was able to save his job and get him drafted over to the RAW brand. There, Steven Richards began using the gimmick of a psychotic jobber and became a 22-time Hardcore Champion trading it several times with Bubba Ray Dudley, Booker T, Crash Holly, Shawn Stasiak, Justin Credible, Bradshaw, Terri, and Tommy Dreamer.

Richards eventually formed an alliance with Victoria in late 2002 as a psychotic couple helping each other win their matches. Richards also helped Victoria retain her WWE Women's Championship.

As Victoria started to make her latest face turn, the duo quietly separated. In August of 2004, Richards began dressing in drag and helping Victoria win matches.[1] He was finally unmasked at Unforgiven when saving Victoria from then heel, Trish Stratus, and Tyson Tomko, but ended up losing an impromptu match to Tomko.[1] Richards made a name for himself as one of the mainstays of Sunday Night HEAT and became the self-proclaimed "General Manager" of "Stevie Night HEAT". After the death of Richard's friend Crash Holly, Richards would wear tights with a similar design to the ones worn by Crash, as a tribute.

Richards's role as a jobber has been at times physically tasking and he was legitimately injured during the RAW debut match of Chris Masters in February 2005. After returning from injury, Richards faced Masters in a rematch but lost to Masters for a second time.

Richards made an appearance at the ECW reunion event ECW One Night Stand 2005, reuniting with his bWo comrades and proclaiming "We have only three words for you. We're – taking – over!"




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Stevie Richards

Michael Manna (born October 9, 1971) is an American professional wrestler currently signed to WWE wrestling on its ECW brand. Best known by his ring name, Stevie Richards, Manna has previously worked for Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) and, briefly, World Championship Wrestling (WCW). He has held the WWE Hardcore Championship 22 times. He is also a two time ECW Tag Team Champion.

Stevie Richards was trained at Iron Mike Sharpe's wrestling school in Brick Township, New Jersey after being discovered by Dan Haney of the World Wide Wrestling Alliance based out of Colmar/Hatfield PA.

On February 25, 1992, Richards participated in the first ever ECW match, in a 20-minute time limit draw with Jimmy Jannetty.

Before the arrival of Raven in ECW, "Dancin'" Stevie Richards had a 'meta gimmick' of mockingly adopting the persona of other wrestlers.

ECW announcer/color commentator Joey Styles frequently described the Richards character as a "clueless putz".

When it was announced that Scott Levy, then known by relatively lightweight gimmicks (ie, Scotty 'the Body' Anthony, Scotty Flamingo, and Johnny Polo), was coming to ECW, Richards began adopting and mocking those gimmicks. One of the first things Levy did in ECW in his new gimmick as Raven was thrash "Stevie Flamingo" soundly.

From that point on, Richards acted as a flunkie for Raven in ECW, calling him "Boss".

While teaming with Raven, Richards won the ECW Tag Team Championship on two occasions.

After a dog collar match against The Pitbulls, which Richards lost, Stevie was thought of as a major superstar. Raven was in the locker room for most of that match.

Richards was also part of the bWo, a parody of the nWo.

At one point, he hinted that he was bringing the band KISS to perform. It ended up being the bWo in KISS regalia, lip-synching. This was quickly 'cleaned up' by The Sandman.

The highlight of his ECW career was perhaps participating in the main event of the first ECW pay-per-view, Barely Legal. He wrestled Terry Funk and The Sandman in a Three Way Dance to determine the number one contender to the ECW World Championship. It was during this match that Richards suffered a severe neck injury which has required numerous surgeries over the years to fix.

Richards would also do a telephone line for ECW under the name, Lloyd Van Buren. However, he would not wrestle under that name.

In May of 1997, Stevie suffered a neck injury so severe that he announced his retirement, before recovering and signing with WCW. Many people, especially Paul Heyman, debate the legitimacy of the injury to this day. Stevie wrestled briefly as a member of Raven's Flock but failed his physical exams and left WCW in October of the same year. Stevie commented on The Rise and Fall of ECW DVD that Raven had told him that he was only there to be his " lackey", and that he would get him fired if he pushed for more of a larger role, knowing both would suffer for demanding more than what was above their current status.



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