Tazz
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| Peter Senerchia | |
|---|---|
| Statistics | |
| Ring name(s) | The Tasmanian Devil The Tazmaniac Taz Tazz |
Peter Senerchia (born on October 11, 1967 in Brooklyn, New York), is an American former professional wrestler best known by his ring name Tazz (originally spelled Taz).
Tazz is currently employed by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), and is the color commentator for their ECW brand alongside play-by-play announcer Joey Styles.
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[edit] Career
Senerchia debuted in 1987 as Kid Krush, but mainly worked as The Tasmanian Devil (later changed to The Tasmaniac) for Northeastern-based promotions such as the Joel Goodhart-run Tri-States Wrestling Alliance (a promotion which specialized in "hardcore" wrestling) and International World Class Championship Wrestling, where he held the IWCCW Light Heavyweight Championship for six months in 1991. After the demise of the Tri-States promotion, Senerchia moved on to the eventual successor of the Tri-States Wrestling Alliance, Extreme Championship Wrestling.
[edit] Extreme Championship Wrestling
Peter Senerchia enjoyed considerable success from 1993 to 1999 in Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), wrestling as The Tazmaniac and later simply Taz. Over 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.
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, Senerchia, wrestling as The Tazmaniac, was the victim of a botched spike piledriver. As Senerchia explains it, he did not have time to adequately protect himself and thus landed on his forehead - "The impact jacked my neck back and that was it." Senerchia remained on the ring apron for the rest 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 difficulty believing Senerchia had walked into the hospital because, he had, in fact, broken his neck. Senerchia was sidelined for over nine months, and when he returned, the Tazmaniac gimmick was no more. Senerchia, now known simply as Taz (A play on then popular Mixed Martial Arts Fighter Kimo) and exhibiting a physically more intense in-ring style, became one of ECW's most popular stars, capturing the ECW World Heavyweight Championship twice.
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. It is also notable that, after a botched Tazplex through a table, he joined Chris Benoit as a wrestler who legitimately broke Sabu's neck. He went on to defeat wrestlers such as Dean Malenko, Chris Candido, Chris Jericho, Shane Douglas, Bam Bam Bigelow, Sabu, Rob Van Dam, Lance Storm, Jerry Lynn and Mikey Whipwreck.
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, Senerchia 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, Senerchia left ECW and joined the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). 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 Senerchia an emotional sendoff.
According to ECW wrestler New Jack, during his time in ECW Senerchia was a "snitch" who called dirt sheet writers and reported the backstage goings on of the ECW locker room.
[edit] The Mike Awesome Title Controversy
As a favor to Paul Heyman (who was working with the WWF for some time), Senerchia 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 (WCW) 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. Heyman successfully sought a court injunction to prevent Awesome from bringing the belt to WCW and had him lose the belt to Senerchia. Senerchia then returned to the WWF and faced WWF 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 about a week later. This was the first and only time that a wrestler under a WCW contract (Mike Awesome) wrestled someone under a WWF contract (Tazz) for an ECW title at an ECW Event.
[edit] World Wrestling Federation / World Wrestling Entertainment
Senerchia made his official WWF debut at the 2000 Royal Rumble as Tazz, and became the first man to defeat Kurt Angle. The next night on RAW, Tazz defeated the Mean Street Posse in a 3-on-1 handicap match. However, after the match, Kurt Angle came out to attack Tazz, which sparked their short feud that led to a match involving Tazz, Angle and The Rock. Tazz was able to defeat Kurt Angle one more time, before moving on to defeat the Big Boss Man at No Way Out 2000. Senerchia then entered a thirteen-man battle royal for the WWF Hardcore Championship at WrestleMania 2000 where he secured the title twice; once by pinning Crash Holly and once by pinning Pete Gas, but lost the title almost immediately on both occasions. Tazz won the ECW World Heavyweight Championship in April 2000 and during the same month, he won the Hardcore Championship for the third time by pinning Perry Saturn, but lost the title to Crash Holly shortly thereafter.
A month or so later, Senerchia was involved in the WWF Intercontinental Championship hunt, but was unable to defeat Chris Benoit for the title on two occasions (even though he defeated Chris Benoit in a non-title match by DQ earlier in their series of bouts). He was then sidelined with an arm injury. Upon his return, Senerchia turned heel by knocking out Rikishi with a camcorder and later defeated Al Snow at Fully Loaded 2000 then began feuding with commentators Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler. He lost to Lawler at SummerSlam 2000, but defeated him in a strap match at Unforgiven 2000 with the help of the debuting Raven. Senerchia and Raven teamed together for several weeks before going their separate ways and eventually feuding with each other, both getting one win a piece. On the August 6, 2000 episode of Sunday Night Heat, Tazz defeated Eddie Guerrero with the Tazmission and marked what would become a continued undefeated streak on that show.
By 2001 Senerchia turned face again and was more focused on commentating than wrestling. He wrestled at WrestleMania X-Seven defeating the Right To Censor, which he considers the highlight of his career. Paul Heyman then reformed ECW within the WWF during the Invasion storyline, which saw Senerchia turn heel again by joining The Alliance before he was thrown out of the faction by Alliance Leader and then heel, Stone Cold Steve Austin due to his mistrust and questioning of authority (Austin coined his "What?" catchphrase during this segment). This made him a face once again.
In 2002 Senerchia defeated the Dudley Boyz for the WWF Tag Team Championships with Spike Dudley as his partner. They lost the titles to Billy and Chuck shortly before Senerca announced his retirement as a result of chronic neck problems. In his final match on RAW, Senerchia defeated Mr. Perfect in which at the end of the match, he cut a short promo -- "It looks like the perfect pick became just another victim!" There was some speculation that he would undergo surgery similar to that performed on Kurt Angle by Dr. Hae-Dong Jho, which would involve "shaving" down affected vertebrae and disks in his neck rather than fusing them, which would likely have ended his career.
Although his injuries have forced him out of the ring, Senerca has contributed in other ways besides broadcasting. On February 3, 2006 it was announced that he and Michael Cole were starting a radio show on Howard Stern's "Howard 101" radio station on Sirius satellite radio, airing Thursday to Sunday at 8pm.
While in a non-WWE competitor role Tazz would be a trainer for the WWE Tough Enough series, as well as providing color commentary for the SmackDown! show. Tazz would occasionally still make non-wrestling appearances in the ring, often applying a Tazzmission to the joy of the crowd. These WWE in-ring confrontations have seen Tazz choke out Matt Striker, Doug Basham, and John Cena.
During 2005, Senerchia made an appearance at the WWE promoted ECW reunion show, ECW One Night Stand 2005, in 2005, where he joined in a brawl between ECW and WWE wrestlers, choking out Kurt Angle with his Tazmission. This however would not be his last ECW appearance.
[edit] Extreme Championship Wrestling (WWE)
With the redevelopment of ECW in WWE during 2006, Tazz left the SmackDown! brand to join with fellow ECW members but not before challenging, and then defeating RAW announcer Jerry "The King" Lawler, who had been making insults about ECW in weeks previous, in a match at ECW One Night Stand 2006, choking Lawler out in only 38 seconds with help from a distraction from Joey Styles.
Tazz would go on to become the color commentator for the ECW brand alongside play-by-play announcer Joey Styles. After having surgery on his knee in November 2006, Tazz was temporarily replaced by Elijah Burke on commentary.
[edit] Wrestling facts
- Finishing and signature moves
- Tazmission (Half nelson choke with body scissors)
- Tazmission-Plex (Half nelson choke suplex)
- Taz-Plex (Overhead head and arm suplex)
- Super Taz-Plex (Top rope head and arm suplex)
- Modified Taz-Plex (Modified side head and arm suplex)
- Capture Taz-Plex (Capture suplex)
- T-Bone Taz-Plex (Exploder suplex)
- German Taz-Plex (Release German suplex)
- Dragon Taz-Plex (Release dragon suplex)
- Tiger Taz-Plex (Release tiger suplex)
- Northern Lights Taz-Plex (Release northern lights suplex)
- Wheelbarrow Taz-Plex (Wheelbarrow suplex)
Top-Rope Taz-Plex (Top rope overhead belly to belly suplex)
- Angry Man's Clothesline (Clothesline)
- Brooklyn Boot (Running big boot)
- Bill Alfonso
- Billy the P
- Richard Lee
- Tony Rumble
- Woman
- Nicknames
- The Human Suplex Machine
- The Human Wrecking Machine
- The Most Miserable Person on the face of the Earth
- The Most Miserable Son-of-a-Bitch in wrestling
- The Most Miserable Son-of-a-Bitch on the Planet
- The One Man Crime Spree
- The Orange and Black Attack
- The Path of Rage
- The Street Thug
- The Brooklyn Judge
- The Heavy Hitter from Brooklyn, New York
[edit] Personal life
Senerchia is married with one son.
Senerchia has a tattoo of the original spelling of his wrestling name, "TAZ" on his upper biceps above his tattoo of the cartoon character of the same name. Since leaving ECW and debuting to the WWE, his name now has an extra z, but he did not add the letter to his existing tattoo. The "Tazz" figure produced by Jakks Pacific does not include that tattoo for legal issues.
Senerchia holds a 3rd degree black belt in judo.
Senerchia is now a radio host for 92.3 Free FM
Senerchia is the cousin of former ECW star, Chris Chetti.
[edit] Championships and accomplishments
- Century Wrestling Alliance
- 1-time CWA Light Heavyweight Champion (first)
- 2-time ECW FTW World Heavyweight Champion
- 3-time ECW Tag Team Champion (2-time with Kevin Sullivan, 1-time with Sabu)
- 2-time ECW World Heavyweight Champion
- 2-time ECW World Television Champion
- 3-time WWF Hardcore Champion
- 1-time WWF Tag Team Champion (with Spike Dudley)
- Amateur Wrestling
- Empire States Heavyweight Champion
- As stated by Joey Styles at November to Remember 1997
