According to New Jack, as with the Mass Transit incident, he "didn't like his attitude" and had particularly taken offense when Slivenski approached him to discuss the match beforehand. At the end of the match, New Jack dove off the top rope with a steel chair and onto Slivenski injuring his face. Afterwards, he took the chair and hit him five times breaking his leg as well. He later began using the move, referred to as a 187, as his finisher and has credited Slivenski, alblit sarcastically, for its creation. Leaving ECW shortly after this incident, Slivenski began competing in the Mid-Eastern Wrestling Federation (MEWF). A month before his run-in with New Jack, he had wrestled Steve Corino in Baltimore. His injuries caused him to miss a year of ringtime before eventually returning to the ring in early 1997. In one of his first matches back, he was scheduled to headline a National Wrestling League show in Boonsboro, Maryland with Devon Storm on April 22, 1997, but the match was cancelled when Storm was unable to appear. A year later, he lost to The Cat Burglar in a 3 Way Dance with Steve Corino for the MEWF Light Heavyweight Championship on September 18, 1998. On October 1, 1999, he wrestled Jake Daniels for The Bad Crew's Hardway Wrestling in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He also wrestled for Atlantic Terror Championship Wrestling and Cueball Carmichael's Independent Pro Wrestling Alliance. In early 2000, Slivenski started wrestling for Maryland Championship Wrestling (MCW). On January 19, 2000, he teamed with "Wiseguy" Jimmy Cicero in a match for the then vacant MCW Tag Team Championship and lost to The Holy Rollers (Earl the Pearl & Rich Myers) in a 3 Way Dance with The Badstreet Boys (Joey Matthews & Christian York) in Glen Burnie, Maryland. On April 14, he became the MCW Cruiserweight Champion in Annapolis by defeating Adam Flash and Quinn Nash in an elimination match. Around this time, he and kayfabe brother Chip Bowman joined Cicero's "heel" stable Total Quality Management with MCW Tag Team Champions Cueball Carmichael & Dino Devine. Two weeks later, he and Chip joined Cicero in a 6-man tag team match against King Kong Bundy and The Ghetto Mafia (2-Dope & Sydeswype) in Lusby, Maryland on April 29.