after being contacted by the world wrestling federation (wwf) and world championship wrestling (wcw) in 1999, taz debuted for the wwf, with the slightly modified ring name tazz, at the 2000 royal rumble with a win over the previously undefeated kurt angle at madison square garden. just a few months after tazz arrived in the wwf, mike awesome, the man he had lost the ecw world heavyweight championship to at anarchy rulz, secretly signed with wcw. legal wrangling by paul heyman prevented awesome from taking the championship belt with him, and in a bizarre piece of professional wrestling history, ecw and wwf officials agreed to have tazz, a wwf wrestler, make a surprise appearance at an ecw show to defeat awesome, a wcw wrestler, for the ecw world heavyweight championship. tazz held the title for ten days before losing it to tommy dreamer, during which time he wore it on various wwf shows, including an episode of "smackdown!" where he lost to the wwf champion triple h. however, vince mcmahon later expressed some regret over booking tazz to lose to triple h.