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Bruce Prichard On Taz Winning ECW Title While in WWE, Says Paul Heyman Wanted Taz to Lose to Triple H

October 12, 2019 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas
Taz Triple H 2000 Image Credit: WWE

– On the latest Something to Wrestle With, Bruce Prichard looked back at the moment when Taz won the ECW Championship from Mike Awesome while in WWE. Awesome was ECW Champion but had signed with WCW and appeared on Nitro in April of 2000. This turned into one of the most unique moments in wrestling history when Taz, a WWE talent, ended up beating a WCW talent in Awesome on an ECW show to win the ECW Championship.

Taz would go on to lose the title soon after to Tommy Dreamer at CyberSlam, but before he did he faced Triple H in a WWE Championship match on Smackdown. Triple H beat Taz after Tommy Dreamer tried to interfere and hit Taz instead of The Game, which set up the CyberSlam match.

Highlights from the discussion, and the full podcast, are below:

On when he first heard about the issue with Awesome: “Paul had called me about it and told me what had transpired. Asked, ‘Is there anybody that I could use?’ Now I don’t know if Paul already had in his head [the idea of using] Taz, or what. But I remember him first asking if there’s anybody he could use. And then he came back, said, ‘Um, what about Taz? It would be a huge f**king deal, he left to go to WWF, now he’s back. He’s one night in the ECW Arena and he becomes the champion. People are gonna go, ‘What the f**k?” I think Paul needed a ‘What the f**k’ moment at this point. Because again, his guys were leaving, and Awesome’s now at WCW. And they know he’s gonna drop it. They know he’s gonna come in and drop the title, but to who? And then when it’s Taz, it’s like, ‘Holy f**k.’ That was a holy s**t moment. It was a good holy s**t moment for ECW and everybody involved.”

On Triple H beating Taz while Taz was ECW Champion: “Oh, I’m sorry. We just filmed something for them, shot something for them to build up their show and their angle, that they got to use from WWE TV, and use to build their stuff. Nobody saw any of that s**t other than Tommy Dreamer coming out, costing Taz the championship. So we shoot an angle for them, how does that bury him? You want him to win our title too?”

On why they had Taz wrestle Triple H: “Because that’s what Paul wanted! Paul wanted [Dreamer] to cost him the biggest match of his f**king career! In Philadelphia. How the f**k does that make — in Philadelphia, the home of Taz and all that, and Dreamer comes out and costs him the god-damned championship? And Dreamer cost the Taz this big moment, to help them with their ECW angle? But of course, you and Dave Meltzer would look at, ‘Oh that buried Taz.’ It helped them. It built their f**king show! I’m sorry, how did that not help? We could have just gone out, just had a match and not put him against the champion. Not put him against Triple H. How in the f**k do you not see that?”

On how the Triple H match helped ECW: “It made — oh my god, it made the match with Taz and Dreamer. That Taz, ECW Champion, is going on to win the WWE Championship, but Tommy Dreamer comes out and cost him that opportunity. So now you’ve got the Dreamer/Taz match on ECW for their coveted championship. That’s an angle and a story.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Something to Wrestle with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.