10 Incredible WWE Attitude Era Moments Nobody Ever Talks About
9. Doin' Business, The Right F'n Way.
In April 2000, Mike Awesome, who had been with ECW periodically since its inception, suddenly appeared on rival WCW programming. His decision to jump ship stemmed from the simple fact that he was now owed a significant amount of overdue wages by Paul Heyman.
The only issue was that Awesome was the ECW Champion at the time, having beaten fellow challenger Masato Tanaka and outgoing WWE-bound champion Taz in a three-way dance during the previous September's Anarchy Rulez. WCW had tried to get Awesome to wear the championship belt on their programming, but Heyman signed an injunction preventing it. However, WCW could refer to Awesome as "The ECW Champion" on-air.
Heyman (who was secretly in cahoots with Vince McMahon), requested for Taz to return on loan and beat Awesome for the title. This all led to an unusual, one-off scenario whereby a then-WWE wrestler, faced a then-WCW wrester for the ECW championship.
During a short, seemingly spontaneous and barely-covered match-up, Taz regained the ECW championship. Following the bell, Awesome jumped the guardrail and egressed from the arena, whilst Taz got on the microphone and declared that that was the right way to do business. The event wasn't part of a PPV, and only really made it onto TV as a vignette.
Taz's reign would last 10 days, during which he appeared on WWE with the belt to face then-WWE Champion Triple H, before dropping it to Tommy Dreamer at CyberSlam 2000.