Ruff and Sweaty

Donovan Dijak and Tommaso Ciampa, Beyond Fete Finale (Beyond Wrestling)

I don't do this blog for money. I do it for wrestling matches. This week Jim from Tennessee made a generous donation to the cause when he sent me this fight from December of 2015. It's a stunner, the sort of big-vs-little match I can get behind, "little," in this case, meaning six feet tall (Ciampa, against 6'5" Dijak, undefeated, also over 60 pounds heavier). 

In less than a minute, Ciampa knocks Dijak out cold with a knee to the face and completes a three-count pin as well. He's halfway back to the locker room when he's pulled back to the ring by an "army of refs," who check Ciampa's kneepads for foreign objects and discover a steel plate under the right pad.

Dijak, still down and seeing stars, refuses the refs' call for a DQ, insisting that the fight restart. No sooner said than done. Dijak can't even get to his feet before Ciampa, clutching the top rope, starts madly stomping, closed-fist punching, and kicking his face. What a nutbuster beginning! And the fight, which rolls (literally) out onto the floor then careens back into the ring maintains its intensity and even gains momentum over the next 20 minutes.

In this match I love the speed and savagery of Tommaso's assaults. My favorite part, pictured in the sixth shot above, is Ciampa climbing up Dijak's body as if it were a tree trunk to clamp on a guillotine choke, the two bodies already slick with sweat. With a combination of choking and punching (and, of course, body scissors), he succeeds in bringing Donovan down to one knee. But the strongman stands back up, still in Ciampa's clutches, and slams Tommaso's back to the turnbuckle. The move breaks the hold, but tenacious bastard that he is, Tommaso leaps back up and restores the hold. Again Dijak bashes him to the turnbuckle, but Ciampa hangs on. At last, in a magnificent show of strength, Donovan peels Tommaso off his body and hurls him to the other side of the ring.

Wow.

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