Stevie Richards

Michael Manna (born October 9, 1971) is an American professional wrestler currently signed to WWE wrestling on its ECW brand. Best known by his ring name, Stevie Richards, Manna has previously worked for Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) and, briefly, World Championship Wrestling (WCW). He has held the WWE Hardcore Championship 22 times. He is also a two time ECW Tag Team Champion.

Stevie Richards was trained at Iron Mike Sharpe's wrestling school in Brick Township, New Jersey after being discovered by Dan Haney of the World Wide Wrestling Alliance based out of Colmar/Hatfield PA.

On February 25, 1992, Richards participated in the first ever ECW match, in a 20-minute time limit draw with Jimmy Jannetty.

Before the arrival of Raven in ECW, "Dancin'" Stevie Richards had a 'meta gimmick' of mockingly adopting the persona of other wrestlers.

ECW announcer/color commentator Joey Styles frequently described the Richards character as a "clueless putz".

When it was announced that Scott Levy, then known by relatively lightweight gimmicks (ie, Scotty 'the Body' Anthony, Scotty Flamingo, and Johnny Polo), was coming to ECW, Richards began adopting and mocking those gimmicks. One of the first things Levy did in ECW in his new gimmick as Raven was thrash "Stevie Flamingo" soundly.

From that point on, Richards acted as a flunkie for Raven in ECW, calling him "Boss".

While teaming with Raven, Richards won the ECW Tag Team Championship on two occasions.

After a dog collar match against The Pitbulls, which Richards lost, Stevie was thought of as a major superstar. Raven was in the locker room for most of that match.

Richards was also part of the bWo, a parody of the nWo.

At one point, he hinted that he was bringing the band KISS to perform. It ended up being the bWo in KISS regalia, lip-synching. This was quickly 'cleaned up' by The Sandman.

The highlight of his ECW career was perhaps participating in the main event of the first ECW pay-per-view, Barely Legal. He wrestled Terry Funk and The Sandman in a Three Way Dance to determine the number one contender to the ECW World Championship. It was during this match that Richards suffered a severe neck injury which has required numerous surgeries over the years to fix.

Richards would also do a telephone line for ECW under the name, Lloyd Van Buren. However, he would not wrestle under that name.

In May of 1997, Stevie suffered a neck injury so severe that he announced his retirement, before recovering and signing with WCW. Many people, especially Paul Heyman, debate the legitimacy of the injury to this day. Stevie wrestled briefly as a member of Raven's Flock but failed his physical exams and left WCW in October of the same year. Stevie commented on The Rise and Fall of ECW DVD that Raven had told him that he was only there to be his " lackey", and that he would get him fired if he pushed for more of a larger role, knowing both would suffer for demanding more than what was above their current status.



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James Maritato / Little Guido Maritato / Nunzio

James Maritato (born March 12, 1972) better known by the ring names Little Guido Maritato and Nunzio, is an American professional wrestler currently signed to World Wrestling Entertainment wrestling on its ECW brand.

While attending Nanuet Senior High School (located in Rockland County, New York), Maritato competed in football (as part of the school's 1989 team that went undefeated, untied, and unscored upon) and wrestling. He was later trained as a professional by Billy Robinson, debuting in the professional ranks in the early 1990s. Maritato then went to Japan to compete in the shoot style UWF International promotion.

He stayed in UWF until 1995 where he joined Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) under the name Damian Stone. He was later given the gimmick of Little Guido and put in the comedy stable the Full Blooded Italians (F.B.I.), alongside J.T. Smith, Tracy Smothers, and Tommy Rich.

During 1999, he became a "serious wrestler", although still accompanied by "Big" Sal E. Graziano. and proclaiming himself to be an F.B.I. member (though only the two of them were left). After his turn he was involved in some intense singles matches until late 2000, when he formed a tag team with Tony Mamaluke. The duo won the ECW Tag Team Championship in August of 2000 and held them until December when they lost them to Danny Doring and Roadkill. They continued to wrestle together until ECW folded in April 2001.

When ECW closed, Maritato wrestled for several independent promotions, mostly in the New York Tri-State area; he often teamed with former partner Tony Mamaluke. They had a notable run in Ring of Honor before Maritato was signed by World Wrestling Entertainment in 2002.

Maritato was introduced on WWE TV as Nunzio, a possible reference to the mob/bodyguard characters Guido and Nunzio in the MythAdventures series of books by Robert Asprin. As the (kayfabe) heel cousin of Jamie Noble, he attacked then babyface Crash Holly after he defeated Noble in a match on the December 12, 2002 edition of SmackDown!. Nunzio began a feud with Crash after this, defeating him on several occasions before going on to face the likes of Tajiri, Shannon Moore, and Chuck Palumbo.

The team and cousin storyline of Nunzio and Noble soon faded. Nunzio reformed the Full Blooded Italians, this time with Johnny "The Bull" Stamboli and Chuck Palumbo, but the team found little success. After WrestleMania XX, Palumbo was drafted to RAW, and the F.B.I. was reduced to a tag team. After Stamboli was released, Nunzio began competing in the cruiserweight division.

In 2005, Maritato returned to his Little Guido persona for one night; he reunited with the original Full Blooded Italians to take on Super Crazy and Tajiri in a Three-Way Dance at the ECW reunion show One Night Stand.




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Michael "Mike" Mizanin, " The Miz" part 3

On March 8, 2006, WWE.com featured a video of "The Miz" stating that he was headed to Friday Night SmackDown! and throughout April, SmackDown! aired vignettes hyping his debut. However, when Mizanin actually attempted to make his debut on the April 21, 2006 edition of SmackDown! he was barred from entering the arena by "network executive" Palmer Cannon who told him that he had been "canceled" before having security escort him from the premises.

In May 31, 2006, WWE.com announced that he would serve as SmackDown!'s "host" on May 31.

Miz debuted as the "host" on June 2, 2006, announcing the planned card at the top of the show and attempting to hype up the crowd. Other "host" duties included backstage interviews and hosting a bikini contest. The hosting duties seemed sporadic at best, with some weeks having little to no Miz at all.

Starting in July, Miz, along with Ashley Massaro, became host of the annual Diva Search competition appearing on both RAW and SmackDown!. At the start of his new hosting duties, in front of the live RAW crowd, Miz was noticeably nervous and flubbed his lines, including calling contestants by the wrong name. Though he seemed to get better as the weeks went on, he quickly became the butt of on-air jokes by other WWE Superstars.

After the end of the Diva Search competition, The Miz returned exclusively to SmackDown! and adopted a cocky heel persona, starting his in-ring competition with a win over Tatanka on September 1, 2006. After this win he, along with commentator Michael Cole, began to note whenever possible that he was "undefeated", though he only wrestled five matches over the next two months, defeating such superstars as Matt Hardy, and Scotty 2 Hotty At the same time he began a feud with Diva Search winner Layla El, who spurned his advances on more than one occasion, leading to Miz helping Kristal defeat her in various competitions. Soon, however, Miz and Kristal found themselves being stalked by the returning Boogeyman, beginning a feud during which The Boogeyman handed Miz his first defeat at Armageddon.

Following a brief absence from TV, Miz returned to SmackDown! to host an interview segment called Miz TV. After the segment went nowhere, Mizanin returned to wrestling with a more intense style and began to pick up wins once again. On the June 11, 2007 edition of RAW, Mizanin faced off against Snitsky in a match to determine a draft pick for SmackDown!. Snitsky easily squashed Mizanin to give ECW the pick, but after constantly attacking The Miz after the match, the referee reversed the decision and awarded the match to Mizanin, thus allowing SmackDown! a draft pick. SmackDown!'s pick was then revealed to be Chris Masters.

Miz was drafted from SmackDown! to ECW on June 17, 2007 as part of the 2007 Supplemental Draft. He was absent from the first few weeks of ECW, though he was the subject of backstage mentions between matches and had several short Miz TV Crashes ECW video segments. He made his debut on the July 10 edition of ECW in a match against Nunzio, which he won. Following this match, Extreme Exposé began expressing admiration in him and gave him a lap-dance, starting a new gimmick for him of a self-proclaimed "chick magnet". Extreme Expose then became managers for The Miz. He then began a feud with Balls Mahoney, after Kelly Kelly began to kayfabe fall in love with Balls. On the October 2 edition of ECW, it was revealed that Miz kayfabe owned the contracts of Kelly Kelly, Layla El and Brooke Adams, and used this excuse to stop Kelly from going out with Mahoney. He was voted at Cyber Sunday to face CM Punk, for the ECW Championship but lost the match.

On November 16, 2007 on Friday Night Smackdown, Miz became one half of the WWE Tag Team Champions with John Morrison when they defeated Matt Hardy and MVP in a title match, which marks Miz's first taste of WWE gold.




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