Peter Senerca

Pete Senerca aka Tazz or Taz (born Peter Senerchia on October 11, 1967 in Brooklyn, New York) is a former professional wrestler who is now working as the color commentator for World Wrestling Entertainment's SmackDown! brand alongside its play-by-play commentator Michael Cole.

Career

ECW

Senerca enjoyed major success from 1993–1999 in Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), wrestling under the name Taz. He built up an incredible reputation, showcasing technical mat maneuvers combined with submission holds and a wide range of suplexes that led him to be dubbed "the human suplex machine." His feud with Sabu, whom he defeated at the first televised ECW Pay-Per-View—"Barely Legal"—in 1997, is considered by many to be among the best of the 1990s . He also defeated wrestlers such as Bam Bam Bigelow, Rob Van Dam, Lance Storm, Jerry Lynn and Mikey Whipwreck. He went on to defeat Shane Douglas in three minutes to claim the ECW Television Championship Title at Wrestlepalooza '97, and later on introduced his own title belt, the FTW World Heavyweight Title, which he defended against anyone. Taz once again defeated Shane Douglas to win the ECW World Heavyweight Championship which he held for 9 months before losing it to Mike Awesome in a 3-way dance with Masato Tanaka at Anarchy Rulz '99.

WWF/WWE

Senerca made his official WWF (now WWE) debut at Royal Rumble 2000 as Tazz, and was the first man to defeat then-undefeated Kurt Angle. He had a short feud with The Rock and Kurt Angle before tangling with Big Boss Man. He then entered a 13-man Battle Royal for the WWE Hardcore Championship at Wrestlemania 2000 and secured the Title twice; once by pinning Crash and once by pinning Pete Gas but was unable to leave the match as the Hardcore Champion. He won the Title once more by pinning Perry Saturn but shortly lost the Title again to Crash while under the 24/7 rule.

He returned to ECW while under WWE contract and surprised the fans by defeating Mike Awesome (who was under WCW contract) to win the ECW World Heavyweight Title in an ECW ring.

Tazz returned to WWE and faced Triple H who was the WWE Champion at the time in the first-ever ECW Champion vs. WWE Champion match on SmackDown!. A month or so later, Tazz was involved in the WWE Intercontinental Championship hunt but was unsuccessful in capturing the Title from Chris Benoit on two occassions and soon sat out due to an arm injury. When he returned, he defeated Al Snow at Fully Loaded 2000 and quickly got himself involved in a feud with Jim Ross and Jerry "The King" Lawler. He lost the Pay-Per-View match to Jerry Lawler at SummerSlam 2000 but was able to get his rematch victory over Lawler at Unforgiven 2000 (this was the same time that Raven made his WWE debut). Tazz occassionally wrestled matches but was focusing more on commentating in 2001 until Paul Heyman reformed ECW within the WWE during the Invasion storyline and Tazz quickly joined and found some success but was still going nowhere. It was in 2002 that Tazz was finally able to capture WWE gold again and did so by defeating the Dudley Boyz for the WWE World Tag-Team Championship Title with Spike as his partner. Before Tazz retired from the ring, he defeated the late great Mr. Perfect.

Profile

• Height: 5'6" (1.75 m)
• Weight: 248 lb (112 kg)
• Trained by: Johnny Rodz
• Professional Debut: 1987
• Previous Identities: Kid Krush / Taz / Tazmaniac / The Tasmanian Devil
• Previous Managers: Woman, Tony Rumble, Richard Lee, Bill Alfonso, Billy the P

Finishing / Signature Moves

• Tazzmission (katahajime)
• Tazzmissionplex (Half-Nelson Suplex)
• T-Bone Tazzplex
• Release German Suplex
• Head and Arm Tazzplex (Modified Overhead Belly To Belly Suplex)

Quotes

• "Beat me--if you can. Survive--if I let you.",
• "The mood is about to change!"
• "You're just another victim."
• "Thug Life born, Thug Life bred, and when the time is right, I'll be Thug Life dead".
• "MTV: More Tazz Victims!"
• "Here comes the Pain!" (In reference to Brock Lesnar)

Titles held

• 1-Time WWE World Tag-Team Champion (w/Spike Dudley (Matthew Hyson))
• 3-Time WWE Hardcore Champion
• 2-Time ECW World Heavyweight Champion
• 2-Time ECW FTW World Heavyweight Champion
• 3-Time ECW Tag-Team Champion (w/Kevin Sullivan then w/Sabu (Terry Brunk))
• 2-Time ECW Television Champion
• 1-Time CWA Light Heavyweight Champion

• Pro Wrestling Illustrated (PWI) ranked him # 147 of the 500 best singles wrestlers during the "PWI Years" in 2003.

Job Titles

• WWE Pay-Per-View Color Analyst
• WWE SmackDown! Color Analyst
• WWE Sunday Night Heat Color Analyst
• WWE Velocity Color Analyst