Athletes - Tazz

	Athletes - Tazz

Pete Senerca (born Peter Senerchia on October 11, 1967 in Red Hook, Brooklyn New York City, New York), is an American former professional wrestler, better known by his stage name, Tazz (originally spelled Taz).

Tazz is currently employed by World Wrestling Entertainment, and is the color commentator for WWE Friday Night SmackDown! alongside play-by-play announcer Michael Cole.

Career

Extreme Championship Wrestling

Peter Senerca enjoyed considerable success from 1993–1999 in ECW, wrestling under the name Taz. Over the course of several years, his undefeated streak and combination of technical mat maneuvers, submission holds gleaned from his judo background and a wide array of suplexes (which led him to be dubbed "The Human Suplex Machine") earned him a degree of infamy. His feud with Sabu, whom he defeated at the first televised ECW pay-per-view, Barely Legal 1997, is considered by some to be among the best of the 1990s. He went on to defeat wrestlers such as Bam Bam Bigelow, Rob Van Dam, Lance Storm, Jerry Lynn and Mikey Whipwreck.

At a Fort Lauderdale, Florida ECW show in 1995 during a tag team match pitting him and Eddie Guerrero against 2 Cold Scorpio and Dean Malenko, Senerca, wrestling as The Tazmaniac, was the victim of a botched spike piledriver. As Senerca explains it, he did not have time to adequately protect himself and landed on his forehead as a result - "The impact jacked my neck back and that was it." Senerca remained on the ring apron for the remainder of the match, but was visibly injured and could not continue. After the match, Tommy Dreamer accompanied Taz to the hospital, where the doctors had a difficult time believing that Senerca had walked into the hospital because, he had, in fact, broken his neck. Senerca was sidelined for over nine months, and, when he returned, the Tazmaniac gimmick was no more. Senerca, now known simply as Taz and exhibiting a physically more intense in-ring style, went on to become one of ECW's most popular stars, capturing the ECW World Heavyweight Championship on two occasions.

Taz defeated Shane Douglas in three minutes to claim the ECW World Television Championship at Wrestlepalooza 1997, and later introduced his own title belt, the ECW FTW Heavyweight Championship, which he would defend against any challenger. On January 10, 1999, Senerca defeated Shane Douglas to win the ECW World Heavyweight Championship, which he held for nine months, before losing to Mike Awesome in a three way dance which also included Masato Tanaka. Shortly after his reign ended, Senerca left ECW and joined the World Wrestling Federation. At the Anarchy Rulz 1999 pay-per-view, in a show of respect and in full view of the fans, ECW owner Paul Heyman and most of the promotion's performers gave the departing Peter Senerca an emotional sendoff.

The Mike Awesome title controversy

As a favor to Paul Heyman (who had been working in conjunction with the WWF for some time), Senerca returned to ECW while under WWF contract in April 2000. He surprised the fans by appearing at an Indianapolis, Indiana ECW show and defeating Mike Awesome to win the ECW World Heavyweight Championship. Awesome had recently signed with the rival World Championship Wrestling promotion, and although Awesome agreed to lose the title, in his reported words: "to anyone," it became known that WCW had given Awesome a large bonus to bring the ECW World Heavyweight Championship belt to WCW. For WCW to do that was not unheard of. Debra "Madusa" Miceli (Alundra Blayze in WWF) did the same thing with the WWF Women's Championship belt; when she signed with WCW in 1995, Miceli appeared on WCW Monday Nitro and threw the Women's Championship into a trash can. However, championship belts are the property of the companies; they are only loaned to the wrestlers, who are responsible for the belts. As a result, Heyman was able to secure a court injunction preventing Awesome from leaving ECW with the belt, and Awesome returned to ECW for one night to lose to Senerca. Senerca then returned to the WWF and faced WWF World Heavyweight Champion Triple H in the first ever singles match between the ECW and WWF World Heavyweight Champions before making a final ECW appearance, losing the belt to Tommy Dreamer several weeks later.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Tazz ]

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Athletes - Tazz

Career

Extreme Championship Wrestling

The Mike Awesome title controversy

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