Tazz

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Peter Senerchia
Statistics
Ring name(s) Kid Krush
The Tasmanian Devil
The Tazmaniac
Taz
Tazz
Billed height 5 ft 9 in (175 cm)
Billed weight 240 lb (109 kg)
Born October 11, 1967
Brooklyn, New York
Resides Massapequa, New York
Billed from The Red Hook Section of Brooklyn, New York
Trained by Johnny Rodz
Debut 1987
Retired 2002

Peter Senerchia (born on October 11, 1967), is a retired American professional wrestler best known by his ring name Tazz (originally Tazmaniac, later shortened to Taz). He is currently signed to World Wrestling Entertainment working on the ECW brand as the color commentator and also does the majority of the play-by-play for the show as well.

Contents

[edit] Career

Peter 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 -- 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 its successor, Extreme Championship Wrestling.

[edit] Extreme Championship Wrestling

Senerchia enjoyed considerable success between 1993 and 1999 in Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) as The Tazmaniac. His career in the company started with a long undefeated streak, during which his combination of technical mat maneuvers, submission holds gleaned from his (legit) judo background, and a wide array of suplexes (which led him to the nickname "The Human Suplex Machine") earned him notoriety.

In 1995, during a tag team match at a Fort Lauderdale, Florida ECW show pitting The Tazmaniac and Eddie Guerrero against 2 Cold Scorpio and Dean Malenko, he became the victim of a botched spike piledriver. As he later explained in the WWE DVD The Rise and Fall of ECW, 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." He remained on the ring apron for the rest of the match, but was visibly injured and could not continue, leaving the other three men to continue the match without him. After the match, Tommy Dreamer accompanied him to the hospital, where the doctors had difficulty believing he had walked into the hospital because, he had, in fact, broken his neck. He was sidelined for over nine months, and when he returned The Tazmaniac gimmick was no more. Instead he was now simply called Taz (A play on then popular Mixed Martial Arts Fighter Kimo[citation needed]) and began exhibiting a more physically intense in-ring style, becoming one of ECW's most popular stars. He went on to capture the ECW World Heavyweight Championship twice.

His feud with Sabu, whom he defeated at the first ECW pay-per-view, Barely Legal, 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 created 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 announced officially that he would leave ECW to join 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. After being off television for most of the fall, he would wrestle one final match as an ECW performer against Rob Van Dam at that year's November to Remember Pay-Per-View, losing to Van Dam via pinfall.

[edit] The Mike Awesome Title Controversy

Controversy arose in ECW after Taz left when Mike Awesome, the reigning ECW World Heavyweight Champion, joined rival promotion World Championship Wrestling. Despite agreeing to lose the title (in his reported words) "to anyone", it became known that he had accepted a large bonus from WCW to bring the title with him. Paul Heyman successfully sought a court injunction to prevent Awesome from taking the belt to WCW. Heyman, who had a working agreement with the WWF for some time, contacted them about bringing Taz back for a few shows. On April 13, 2000, Taz made a surprise appearance at an ECW show in Indianapolis, Indiana, and defeated Mike Awesome to become a two-time ECW World Champion. He then wrestled reigning WWF Champion Triple H, in a match that featured a surprise appearance by Tommy Dreamer, on WWF Smackdown!. Dreamer attempted to stop Triple H from cheating but, after accidentally hitting Taz in the head with a chair, helped Triple H to win. A week later, Taz (in his final ECW appearance) lost the ECW World Championship to Tommy Dreamer. Taz later commented on The Rise and Fall of ECW that his second ECW World Championship reign was memorable due to the fact that it was the only time that a WCW contracted wrestler wrestled a WWF contracted wrestler for an ECW title, and it was the first time that the ECW World Champion wrestled the WWF World Champion on a WWF show.

[edit] World Wrestling Federation / World Wrestling Entertainment

Tazz (the second Z was added to avoid a lawsuit with Warner Brothers over their animated character Taz) made his official WWF debut at the 2000 Royal Rumble, 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, Tazz 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. Tazz and Raven teamed together for several weeks before going their separate ways and eventually feuding with each other, both getting one win each. In October 2000, when Sunday Night HEAT moved to MTV, Tazz replaced Kevin Kelly as color commentator.

By 2001 Tazz turned face again and was more focused on commentating than wrestling. In February, Tazz became color commentator of Smackdown! when Jerry Lawler quit. Paul Heyman then reformed ECW within the WWF during the Invasion storyline, which saw Tazz turn heel and became the voice of The Alliance (the partnership of Shane McMahon's WCW and Stephanie McMahon's ECW) on Smackdown!. He briefly feuded with Alliance Leader Steve Austin, who was angered by Tazz's decision to remain at commentary during an altercation where Shane McMahon was beaten by The Rock. Tazz eventually pledged himself to Austin's side, until he left the faction on the November 14 edition of SmackDown!. Paul Heyman launched a promo against Vince McMahon, during which Heyman called Tazz a "fat, balding color commentator... and not even a very good one." Angered at Heyman's criticism, Tazz locked him in the Tazmission, making him a face once again. In November 2001, Lawler returned to the WWF and replaced Tazz on Smackdown!

In 2002 Tazz defeated the Dudley Boyz for the WWF Tag Team Championships with their "half-brother" Spike Dudley as his partner. They lost the titles to Billy and Chuck. In the WWF Brand Extension, Tazz was drafted to Smackdown! with the 52nd pick and once again became the show's color commentator. Tazz continued to wrestle at live events for a few weeks, but eventually retired as a result of chronic neck problems. 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, Senerchia 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, Buff Bagwell and John Cena.

During 2005, Tazz made an appearance at the WWE promoted ECW reunion show, ECW One Night Stand, when he joined in a brawl between ECW and WWE wrestlers, and choked out Kurt Angle with his Tazmission. This however would not be his last ECW appearance.

With the redevelopment of ECW in WWE during 2006, Tazz left the SmackDown brand to become the color commentator of the new ECW along side Joey Styles. He challenged and defeated RAW announcer Jerry Lawler, who had been making insults about ECW in weeks previous, in the opening match at One Night Stand 2006. He choked Lawler out in only 38 seconds, with help from a distraction by Styles.

Along with doing color commentary for ECW's weekly shows, Tazz also host the ECW show on WWE 24/7, which shows old episodes of ECW. After having surgery on his knee in November 2006, Tazz was replaced on commentary for one night by Elijah Burke.

[edit] Wrestling facts

Jerry Lawler suffers the Tazzmission at One Night Stand 2006.
Jerry Lawler suffers the Tazzmission at One Night Stand 2006.
  • Finishing and signature moves
  • 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 face of the Planet
  • The One Man Crime Spree
  • The Path of Rage
  • The Street Thug
  • The Brooklyn Judge
  • The Heavy Hitter from Brooklyn, New York
  • Entrance theme

[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 in the WWF/E, 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 include that tattoo.

Senerchia holds a 3rd degree black belt in judo.

Senerchia attended C.W. Post college on Long Island for one year and played on the football team before dropping out to start his wrestling career.[2]

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

  • Amateur Wrestling
  • Empire States Heavyweight Championship
  • Century Wrestling Alliance
  • CWA Light Heavyweight Championship (1 time, first)
  • Ranked # 10 of the PWI Top 500 in 1999
  • Ranked # 147 of the PWI Years Top 500

[edit] References

  1. ^ "ECW World Champion Taz pinned Shane Douglas at around the 14-minute mark following a Tazmission Plex through a table laid against the corner; Douglas wore a cast on his right arm for the match (ECW House Party 96 - 1/16/99; ECW Arena)" from angelfire.com/wrestling/cawthon777/dvd.htm
  2. ^ "Rise-Fall-ECW-Championship-Wrestling". amazon.com

[edit] External links

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