He was one of the WWE’s big indie name signings last year when former Ring of Honor Donovan Dijak signed with the WWE and reported to the WWE Performance Center in September of 2017. It didn’t take long for him to hit the NXT Live Events circuit, wrestling under his real name Christopher Dijak. Although he’s wrestled two matches for NXT before as enhancement – losses to Ricochet and Velveteen Dream – he finally made his “official” NXT debut under his new WWE name, Dominik Dijakovic, tonight on NXT in a win over Aaron Mackey (portrayed by recently crowned inaugural ACTION Champion AC Mack). After weeks of vignettes on NXT television and a year in development, one of 2017’s most exciting wrestlers has arrived in NXT.
A product of Massachusetts’ Chaotic Wrestling, Dominik Dijakovic made his debut in 2013 following training with Chaotic Wrestling‘s Brian Fury and NXT Superstar Hanson (of War Raiders). Within a year, Dijakovic was the CW Heavyweight Champion, which the 6’7″ monster held for 148 days. By his second year, he appeared for Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW) and wrestled a dark match for EVOLVE Wrestling. That July, he made his first appearances for Ring of Honor at Future of Honor, where he faced both Moose and Stokely Hathaway.
He broke out in 2015 early, winning the ROH Top Prospects Tournament, defeating Jake Dirden and Ashley Sixx en route to beating Will Ferrera in the finals, and soon after became the new enforcer for Truth Martini‘s House of Truth stable. He frequently tagged with J. Diesel in House of Truth’s tag team representation, competing against the likes of The Briscoes, reDRagon (Kyle O’Reilly & Bobby Fish) and War Machine (now War Raiders in NXT). In 2016, he broke away as a singles competitor, away from House of Truth, and picked up big wins against the likes of Cedric Alexander, Moose, Trent Baretta, and others, but by the end of the year, he hit a losing streak that he never quite recovered from in ROH.
In 2016, he also made his debut with Beyond Wrestling and into the UK indie scene with IPW:UK and RevPro, amongst others, showing a ferocity and athleticism that ROH often failed to capitalize on. Following losses to Dalton Castle, Cody Rhodes and Marty Scurll (for the ROH Television Championship), Dijak departed ROH in early 2017 for a more extensive schedule on the international indies. He continued to shine in Beyond Wrestling, as well as debuted with Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG) – where his quarterfinal match with Keith Lee in the 2017 PWG Battle of Los Angeles was one of the year’s best matches – as well as PROGRESS in England, Over The Top (OTT) Wrestling in Ireland, and Germany’s Westside Xtreme Wrestling (wXw). Dijak emerged as one of the indie’s best “hoss” workers, combining size with agility in multiple stand out affairs. It was only a matter of time after that before WWE came calling. And they did.
Now, after a year of hard work and character building on the NXT Live Event circuit, the man formerly known as Donovan Dijak has made his official debut into the WWE Universe as Dominik Dijakovic, and the world will finally get to see what the giant from Worcester, Massachusetts is capable of.
