Fantasy booking Tazz in WWE: The monster Vince McMahon never wanted
Sometimes WWE gets everything right.
The debut.
The entrance.
The opponent.
The presentation.
Then... they completely lose the plot.
That's exactly what happened with Tazz.
To this day, he's one of the biggest missed opportunities of the Attitude Era. Not because he should have been "the next Stone Cold" or the face of the company, but because WWE already had something they didn't have anywhere else—a legitimate, terrifying submission machine.
Instead, they turned him into just another guy.
The Debut That Had Everyone Talking
If you watched the 2000 Royal Rumble live, you probably remember the feeling.
The lights dimmed.
Heartbeat.
The Madison Square Garden crowd erupted before Tazz even appeared through the curtain. It wasn't flashy. It wasn't overproduced. It just felt... dangerous.
That heartbeat entrance remains one of the coolest debuts WWE has ever produced.
Then came Kurt Angle.
The undefeated Olympic gold medallist had spent months bragging about being unbeatable. Enter Tazz, who suplexed Angle all over the ring before locking in the Tazzmission and making him tap out clean.
An ECW outsider had just marched into WWE and embarrassed one of its fastest-rising stars.
What a statement.
It should have been the beginning of something huge.
Instead...
The Wheels Fell Off Almost Immediately
Within weeks, Tazz stopped feeling special.
The wins became losses.
The aura disappeared.
Then came Triple H.
Their SmackDown match wasn't just another defeat—it was the moment WWE told the audience, "Don't worry about this guy."
To make matters worse, stories have circulated for years that Triple H wasn't particularly high on Tazz because he thought he was too small to be a believable top star.
Unfortunately, that seemed to become the company mindset.
And that's where WWE completely misunderstood what made Tazz work.
Nobody cared that he wasn't 6'8".
Mike Tyson wasn't 6'8".
The toughest bloke in your local pub probably isn't either.
Tazz didn't need to tower over people. He just needed to look like he could choke them unconscious in ten seconds.
Mission accomplished.
Vince Never Really Bought In
There's also the feeling that Vince McMahon never fully embraced Tazz because he was an ECW creation.
Vince loved making stars.
He wasn't always as enthusiastic about inheriting them.
Tazz arrived with years of credibility, a rabid fanbase and a reputation as one of wrestling's most believable badasses.
Instead of capitalising on that momentum, WWE slowly stripped away everything that had made him feel different.
Within a year he was drifting through the midcard.
Soon after that...
Commentary.
What a waste.
Fantasy Booking: Let Tazz Stay Dangerous
The first rule?
Stop trying to make Tazz wrestle like everyone else.
He shouldn't be having long competitive TV matches every week.
His matches should feel uncomfortable.
Someone gets thrown around with suplexes.
Someone gets choked out.
Bell rings.
Next victim.
Every appearance should leave fans wondering who was unlucky enough to be standing across the ring.
Never Change That Entrance
Seriously.
Don't touch it.
No heavy metal remix.
No generic entrance music.
Just as it was at Royal Rumble.
The anticipation did half the work before Tazz even walked through the curtain.
Sometimes WWE has a habit of fixing things that aren't broken.
This definitely wasn't broken.
Turn Him Into WWE's Boogeyman
Not actually The Boogeyman.
Not spooky.
Just unavoidable.
You don't challenge Tazz because you want a title.
You challenge him because eventually he'll come looking for you anyway.
Commentators should constantly remind viewers that nobody enjoys wrestling Tazz.
Winning isn't the issue.
Surviving is.
Kurt Angle Gets His Revenge... Eventually
After the Royal Rumble, Angle becomes obsessed.
He can't accept that this ECW guy walked into WWE and made him tap.
Week after week he demands another match.
Tazz keeps choking him out.
Only after months of frustration does Angle finally outsmart him in a submission classic.
Now both men are bigger stars.
Instead of killing Tazz's momentum, you've made one of WWE's best rivalries even stronger.
The Blood Feud WWE Should Have Given Us
Forget the WWE Championship.
Tazz didn't need it.
What he needed was one unforgettable rivalry.
I'd have paired him with Kane.
Not because either man needed the rub, but because the visual alone is incredible.
This unstoppable monster who's spent years destroying people suddenly runs into someone who simply refuses to stay down.
Suplexes don't keep Kane down.
The Tazzmission doesn't work immediately.
For the first time, Tazz actually has to dig deeper.
The feud becomes less about wins and losses and more about two wrecking balls trying to destroy each other.
Imagine parking lot brawls.
Backstage fights.
Security unable to separate them.
One week Kane chokeslams Tazz through a production table.
The next week Tazz traps Kane in the Tazzmission with a steel chain wrapped around his neck.
No titles.
No authority figures.
Just violence.
Or if you wanted an even bigger attraction?
The Undertaker.
The Deadman has seen every monster come and go, but Tazz doesn't fear him.
No mind games.
No intimidation.
Just an angry pitbull trying to drag The Undertaker into a fight.
That's money.
The Legacy That Could Have Been
Nobody is saying Tazz should have headlined WrestleMania every year.
But he absolutely could have been WWE's resident assassin.
The guy nobody wanted to wrestle.
The man who could realistically beat anybody on the roster on the right night.
Instead, one of the hottest debuts of the Attitude Era fizzled out within months.
The saddest part?
The blueprint was already there.
The heartbeat.
The submission.
The attitude.
The credibility.
WWE didn't need to reinvent Tazz.
They just needed to leave him alone.
