10 Awesome Wrestling Debuts That Quickly Faded Away

There was nothing flashy about Tazz’s WWE debut, but it was still an awesome moment. The undefeated Kurt Angle opened the 2000 Royal Rumble pay-per-view with a typically smug, smarmy promo putting down the host city (New York) and running his unannounced opponent into the ground. Angle’s arrogance was through the roof, and the thought of losing that night seemed inconceivable to the Olympic Gold Medalist, regardless of who he was facing.

Tazz walked out to a monstrous pop from the Madison Square Garden crowd, and promptly put an end to Angle’s undefeated streak. Angle later protested that the Tazzmission hold that Tazz had used to win the match was an illegal choke, but the damage was done. His streak was over, and in defeating one of WWE’s fastest rising stars in his very first match, it looked like Tazz was on the fast track to greatness.

Sadly, Tazz’s WWE career only went downhill from there. He continued at a steady pace for the first few months before losing to Triple H on an episode of SmackDown, then entering the Intercontinental Title hunt. Tazz never came close to winning the belt, however, and after taking some time off to heal an arm injury that summer, he entered a horrendous feud with commentator Jerry Lawler. Tazz was never relevant again, the former ECW Champion was relegated to commentary duties by 2001.