senerchia began wrestling in world wrestling council (wwc) and made his professional wrestling debut on june 3, 1987 in san juan, puerto rico, after being trained by johnny rodz. he wrestled as kid krush before moving on to the name the tazmaniac, which he would use variations of for the rest of his career. in the early 1990s, as the tazmaniac, he wrestled for international world class championship wrestling (iwccw) and held its light heavyweight championship for six months in 1991. he would follow tony rumble in leaving iwccw to join the newly established century wrestling alliance (cwa). he would also tour in new japan pro wrestling (njpw).