Lunenburg native, former WWE star Chris Dijak shifts gears, wrestles around the world

Chris Dijak’s career as a professional wrestler has come full circle in the ring.

And that was out of necessity after the 2005 Lunenburg High graduate saw his eight-year run with World Wrestling Entertainment end after the organization didn’t renew his contract in June.

Now he’s back where it all began 11 years ago, wrestling on the widespread independent circuit under the alliterative appellation Donovan Dijak.

“I’m basically an independent contractor and working for myself,” Dijak, 37, said Wednesday afternoon during a Zoom call from his home in Brookline, New Hampshire. “I’m not under a contract to anybody, so I can basically go wherever I want and wrestle whenever I want.

“Kind of making my own schedule, and I’ve been filling it up pretty good. I’m working pretty much every week, three, four. sometimes five times a weekend. It’s been very busy.”

Indeed, last week Dijak wrestled in Delaware on Thursday, Edmonton, Canada, on Friday, at the Palladium in Worcester on Saturday, London — yes, the capital city of England — on Sunday, and did a signing on Long Island on Tuesday.

“So very busy, but better to be busy than to have no opportunities at all,” a smiling Dijak enthusiastically said, not showing a glimmer of jet lag.

The 6-foot-7 Dijak, who currently checks in at 255 pounds, was a T&G Super Team selection in football as a senior at Lunenburg High, where he also starred in basketball and track. He went on to play football and basketball for four years each at Bridgewater State, from which he graduated with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in criminal justice.

Then, at the age of 25, Dijak gave pro wrestling a go. He landed with WWE four years later and wrestled under the stage names Dominik Dijakovic, T-Bar and Dijak, this good guy often cast as a villain.

But WWE ended the relationship at the start of the summer.

“It’s a double-edged sword, kind of like everything in the world of professional wrestling and, honestly, most worlds of business and jobs and things like that,” Dijak said. “There are pros and cons to everything.

“I wanted to be with WWE. I felt that was a good place for me, and like most things in professional wrestling, there is a lot of timing involved.

“They didn’t offer me a contract when it was time to renew, so I had to shift gears very quickly. Thankfully the response has been kind of reassuring to me.”

And if you’re wondering whether Dijak is now a hero or a villain, well, that depends on what the promoter wants.

“I went over to London, and they were booing me out of the building,” Dijak said “and that was the night after I was the hometown hero in Worcester. A lot of it depends on who I’m wrestling and sometimes I don’t even get a say in it.”

Dijak’s wife, Ashley (Ottens), who hails from Pepperell and graduated from Groton-Dunstable, has been handling the business and logistical aspects of the next phase of her husband’s wrestling career, which saw him in Montreal on Friday and Maine on Saturday.

The couple have two kids, Connor, 6, and Amelia, 4, and relocated from Orlando to the New Hampshire border town of Brookline four years ago in a house they had built. They’re close to family, about a 25-minute drive from each of their parents, who still reside in Luneburg and Pepperell.

“I’m happy to be in the area, I’m happy to be around the community, I’m happy to be able to wrestle a lot of local shows,” Dijak said.

That will include “Fall Frenzy,” which is being put on by Lucky Pro Wrestling of Clinton on Sept. 20 at the Elks Lodge in Leominster.

After his departure from WWE, Dijak gave no thought to retiring from wrestling and, say, putting those criminal justice degrees to work. He can envision himself continuing with the sport for quite a few years, and not just as a performer.

“Pro wrestling has a lot more to offer beyond being an in-ring talent,” Dijak said. “There are options available in terms of producing, coaching, running shows, and things like that. To me personally, the thing that speaks the most is the coaching aspect.”

Dijak served as a player-coach of sorts to new talent when he was part of NXT, one of the WWE’s developmental circuits.

He also has been teaching two-hour training sessions to would-be wrestlers prior to his matches since he returned to the independent circuit, and is a full-time coach at the New England Pro Wrestling Academy in North Andover, where he got his start in the sport.

“So I just circled back,” Dijak said, “My goals and aspirations are to open my own school, as well, because that’s something I can sustain.”

Finally, Dijak has been taking acting lessons from esteemed stage and big-screen coach Howard Fine of Los Angeles by way of Providence.

Fine has worked with Bradley Cooper, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Brad Pitt and Will Smith to name a few.

“It’s a multi-pronged approach,” Dijak said. “I’d like to be an actor as well as a wrestler and a trainer. It’s as many different things I’d like to do all at the same time. That’s kind of my approach to, let’s call it, the next 20 years of my life.”

—Contact Rich Garven at rgarven@telegram.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @RichGarvenTG.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Lunenburg native, former WWE star Chris Dijak shifts gears, wrestles around the world