9 Worst Botches In ECW History

Peter Senerca, aka ‘the Human Suplex Machine’ Taz, would become one of the major players in ECW upon his return from a serious neck injury in late 1996. He left ECW in the tail end of 1999 on top of the company, having signed with WWF in order to cross off the third of three goals he had in professional wrestling: he wanted to be able to make a living out of it, to have held any championship (because it meant that the company he worked for placed serious stock in him as a performer) and, lastly, to wrestle at Madison Square Garden, something he knew would never happen with ECW.

Had he continued with the gimmick he used in his initial run with ECW, his name might never have reached the ears of the WWF. At only five foot eight inches tall and playing ‘the Tazmaniac’, a bestial cartoon character, Taz was midcard or lower for life. Then, in mid 1995 at a Fort Lauderdale, Florida show, working a tag team match against 2 Cold Scorpio and Dean Malenko with his partner Eddie Guerrero, Taz took a spike piledriver from Scorpio without sufficient time to properly protect himself, and landed on his forehead.

Senerca felt the impact jack his neck back, and was forced to lie on the ring apron for the remainder of the match, unable to continue towards the finish as planned. Following the match, recognising that something had gone seriously wrong, he went to the emergency room with Tommy Dreamer… whereupon the doctors told him that he’d broken his neck, expressing astonishment that a man with that kind of injury had just walked into the hospital unaided.

From all reports, Senerca never had any surgery on his neck to assist a recovery, contributing towards his decision some years later to retire from in-ring competition to become a colour commentator with the WWE. However, when he returned to ECW in December 1995, he was on a mission, and under an entirely different gimmick: the unstoppable shoot fighter Taz, suplex and submission specialist, not a million miles away from the character that Brock Lesnar plays in WWE today.

Taz was responsible for introducing the tapout finish to professional wrestling in the USA, and at one point was undefeated for around eighteen months, a lifetime in the gladiatorial arena that was ECW. “ 2 Cold Scorpio’s botched spike piledriver may well have made Peter Senerca the star he ended up becoming.