Extreme Championship Wrestling
In October 1993, he and Jack Chetti debuted in the
Philadelphia-based Eastern Championship Wrestling (ECW)— just prior to its name change to
Extreme Championship Wrestling — as the
tag team The Tazmaniacs. When that team broke up he was put into one with
Kevin Sullivan, with whom he won the
ECW Tag Team Championship twice; the Tazmaniac becoming a double champion during their second reign when he also held the
ECW Television Championship for one night in March of 1994. For most of the rest of the year he floated around the tag ranks, teaming with different partners. He held the title once more, this time with
Sabu, until Sabu was (
legitimately) fired by ECW owner
Paul Heyman for
no showing an event in favor of appearing at another event in Japan.
Tazmanic was put out of action by a (
legitimate) injury for much of 1995. During a tag team match
2 Cold Scorpio and
Dean Malenko delivered a
spike piledriver to him, and though he knew it was coming, he didn't have time to properly protect himself. As he explained on the DVD documentary
The Rise and Fall of ECW, "The impact jacked my
neck back and that was it." The neck injury was so bad that, according to
Tommy Dreamer, hospital staff couldn't believe he'd walked into the hospital where he sought help after the match. Though he was unable to wrestle, Paul Heyman continued to pay him per their oral agreement, forging a loyalty between the men.
When he returned, he did so with a revamped
gimmick and used the shortened name
Taz. The new character had him clad in a black
singlet and exhibiting a more physically intense in-ring style, focusing his offense on
suplexes — which announcer
Joey Styles called "Tazplexes" — earning him the nickname "Human Suplex Machine". He also debuted his
Tazmission finishing maneuver, causing opponents to
tap out to signal their submission as in
mixed martial arts instead of nodding their head or vocally saying "yes". This quirk was soon picked up by other companies throughout the country. After
feuds with 2 Cold Scorpio,
Jason, and
Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran
Paul Varelans, Taz and his former partner
Sabu were put into a
angle stemming from the firing incident years earlier. The two chased each other throughout 1996 and 1997, including having an altercation on
Monday Night RAW, the flagship show of their "competition", during a working agreement between the two companies. The feud was all designed to lead to ECW's first
pay-per-view, Barely Legal, where Taz defeated Sabu with his
Tazmission, only to have his
manager, Bill Alfonso, turn on him and join Sabu and his partner
Rob Van Dam. Two months later, at
Wrestlepalooza, Taz took the Television Championship from
Shane Douglas to begin his second reign, starting a feud with
Bam Bam Bigelow over it and eventually losing it to him.
After losing the TV championship, Taz was elevated into the World Heavyweight Championship picture. In May of 1998, with Shane Douglas injured and unable to wrestle, Taz was given an old Television Championship belt painted orange — his trademark color — and began
cutting promos declaring himself the
FTW Heavyweight Champion of the World. Though the championship was unsanctioned in
kayfabe, it was defended at ECW shows until Douglas was healthy, at which time Taz defeated him for the ECW World Heavyweight title. Just before winning the World title, Taz "gave" the FTW title to long time foe Sabu in a match where he physically pulled Sabu on top of him to allow him to get the pin. Taz held the ECW World Championship for nine months before he signed with the
World Wrestling Federation, losing the title as the first man eliminated in a
three way dance at
Anarchy Rulz. As he walked out of the ring, a large portion of the ECW locker room joined him on the entrance ramp to give him an emotional sendoff. After being off of ECW television for most of the fall, he wrestled one final match as an ECW performer at
November to Remember, losing to
Rob Van Dam via
pinfall.