12 Wrestlers Whose Ring Names Outlasted Their Gimmicks
3. Tazz
If you’ve seen Pete Senerchia wrestle, you probably know that he tends not to slobber all over the place and spin around in circles. Still, the “Taz(z)” name has stuck with him for decades, despite little resemblance to the Looney Tunes character.
Well, before he was Taz, he was the Tazmaniac, an aboriginal wildman character from the island of Tasmania. Tazmaniac wrestled barefoot, wore animal hides and face paint, and even had hair! With such an insulting portrayal of the Aborigines (save for his superior knowledge of suplexes), the Tazmaniac would not have been welcome in Australia, mainland or otherwise. But he would have felt right at home in the Dungeon of Doom, the embarrassing WCW stable of weirdos that was the polar opposite of the realistic, edgy style that ECW was trying to present at the time.
Fortunately, the Tazmaniac relocated to Red Hook, shortened his name, and became ECW champion before moving on to WWE and later TNA as an announcer. Tell me, in what other sport can you find a commentator named, “Taz”?