after losing the ecw world heavyweight championship, tazz was placed into contention for the intercontinental championship, but never won the title. in the summer, after taking time off for an arm injury, he was turned into a villainous character and placed into a feud with color commentator jerry lawler. the feud included matches at summerslam and unforgiven, which they split. tazz was only able to pick up the unforgiven win when he received help from raven, who had returned to the company. afterwards, the duo formed a tag team that lasted until november.