Following his hard-hitting collision with Heavy Machinery’s Otis Dozovic, NXT Champion Tommaso Ciampa might think twice before labeling a match a “waste of time” ever again.
The Scourge of NXT eked out the win, but it was far from the walk in the park that he had anticipated. Dozovic spun Ciampa into a bodyslam that elicited a “Steaks and weights” chant, and dumped Ciampa to the floor (which Dozovic celebrated by breaking into the Caterpillar).
After Dozovic nearly took off the champion’s head with a clothesline, Ciampa seemed willing to call it a day and retreated up the entrance ramp with the NXT Title, only to be cut off by Tucker Knight. Upon his return to the ring, Ciampa was repeatedly tossed overhead by the ferociously strong Dozovic.
The Blackheart resorted to using the referee as a blockade to slow Dozovic’s momentum, though the Heavy Machinery member still came back with a thunderous powerbomb to garner a near-fall. Dozovic then set up for a Vader Bomb, but Ciampa rolled out of the way. The break in the action gave Ciampa time to regroup and drill Dozovic with a draping DDT onto the ring apron. He immediately followed up with a second draping DDT inside the ring. The back-to-back impacts were utterly debilitating, and Ciampa snared the victory, barely.
There may have been some skullduggery involved, but the self-proclaimed “Greatest Sports-Entertainer of All Time” once again proved his win-at-all-costs mentality.