Folks, it’s the frontman of the first ever Christian rock/70’s concert band fusion, The Pray Geils Band, me, James E. Couture. As I was watching ECW this past Tuesday, I began to think about the ECW Championship, and whether this is a direct continuation of the lineage of the original ECW Title, like they try to pull off with the U.S. Title, or if the history is separate but equal (there’s got to be a better way to put that). Then I realized that Bobby Lashley, Snitsky, or Kelly Kelly be damned, none of them would be the first WWE Superstar to hold the ECW Title. No, that honor belongs to this weeks Profile, it’s Tazz, ECW Champion.

Taz signed with the WWE in late 1999, and after some brief Z-transplant surgery from donor Tom Zenk, became Tazz. Despite debuting to some fanfare, Tazz was quickly relegated to the “Hardcore Division”, which is code for “disappear for weeks at a time only to appear in multi-man clusterf***s for about a minute”. Seeing the writing on the wall (with the aid of an overturned milk crate), Tazz would go to competition if competition wouldn’t come to him.

In early 2000, Mike Awesome was ECW Champion, and so not dead it hurt. But, like the Douglases and Haks before him, Mike decided to trade the “E” for a “Dubyah”, and get paid in real money rather than Paul Heyman’s “Uncle Paul’s Fun Bucks”. Yes, the Awesome One was WCW-bound, but he still had that pesky title. Someone needed to step up.

And so, Paul Heyman called upon Tazz to take down Large Mike, so that he could take the title off of a guy leaving the company and have it around the waste of a guy who had already left the company. Obviously.

On April 13, 2000, Tazz stepped up to the plate and beat Mike Awesome for the ECW title. Despite being about 4 feet taller and at least 2 pounds heavier than his opponent, Mike lasted only a few minutes longer than veal parmesan against Tazz.

Paul Heyman, fearful of the ECW Championship going to another company, only let Tazz wrestle twice on WWE television that next week. In the first historic battle, taz lost to living legend Perry Saturn and Crash Holly in a three way bout for the Hardcore Title. In the second battle for the ages, ECW Champion Tazz lost to WWE Champion Triple H in a battle so titanic, they didn’t even need to put it on last. Tommy Dreamer, seeing the illogicality of having the ECW Champ out and about, shocked the world by screwing Tazz out of the match. Even more shocking, Tommy actually won a match, and the title from Tazz on April 21.

Even if it was only for 8 days, the brief time he practically owned the ECW Title inspired Vince McMahon. If a short tub of spaghetti like Tazz could get over with the belt, surely a bemuscled behemoth could hold it and defend it against guys better suited for Heat, and be considered a big star, and fight a fat Samoan at WrestleMania to get a real estate tycoon to appear at the show! (Vince McMahon is quite a tarot card reader)

Well, until WWE decides to give The Great Khali his own interview segment, “Boofderguytaterrrr With Khali”, I am, in fact, James E. Couture.

And listen for The Pray Geils Band’s first single “Must Have Got Lost But At Least I Found Jesus” on radios everywhere.