Once his training was complete, he joined the ECW roster, and had his first professional match on October 18, 1996 in LuLu Temple in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania against Taz.

In December 1997, Roadkill formed an unlikely tag team with his fellow House of Hardcore graduate, Danny Doring.

This was followed by a series of feuds with the Impact Players (Lance Storm and Justin Credible), Simon Diamond and Johnny Swinger, Joey Matthews and Christian York, and then Tommy Dreamer and Raven.

They appeared against fellow ECW originals The Full Blooded Italians (Little Guido and Tony Mamaluke) in early 2001 at Madison Square Garden.

[6] On April 17, 2004 they would be defeated by Jack Victory and Rockin' Rebel and after the match Roadkill turned on the Blue Meanie because Commissioner Raven had told him that he was a shell of his former self.

[11] Because of this singles success he would get a shot at the 3PW Heavyweight Championship against Wagner Brown on March 19[12] and April 9, 2005 but would be on the losing end of both those matches.

On the May 5, 2006 edition of SmackDown, Roadkill and James would lose to William Regal and Sylvain Grenier in a tag team dark match.

[17] On the June 13 edition of ECW, Roadkill took part in a battle royal (with the winner facing John Cena at Vengeance) but was eliminated by Big Show before it was eventually won by Sabu.

[18] Two weeks later, on the June 27 edition of ECW he faced Sabu in an Extreme Rules Match in which he lost by tapping out to the camel clutch.

On February 21 at the OVW TV Tapings, he defeated Mike Tolar in a dark match in which his name was tweaked to Tony Braddock.

On June 13 at the OVW TV Tapings, Polaski would defeat Chet the Jett to earn the right to challenge Santino Marella for the Intercontental Championship in his first major WWE Title match.

He would then have his final match for WWE challenging OVW Heavyweight Champion Matt Sydal for the title at a house show in a losing effort.