2020: The year of despair is the year of reckoning for WWE superstar Otis
The year that everyone wants gone, is the year Otis Dozovic will remember forever.
This year has seen a lot of misery for the majority of the population on earth with bushfires, deadly diseases, environmental changes, and ideological wars playing a dominant role in the first half of 2020. The novel coronavirus has brought down countries to its knees with millions of people getting infected. 2020 hasn’t been kind to many. However, there is one wrestler who will remember 2020 as a momentous year.
The year that everyone wants gone, is the year Otis Dozovic will remember forever.
He came up from NXT as part of the tag team Heavy Machinery and quickly captured the imagination of the WWE Universe. Otis and Tucker were the fan favourites but failed to win any championships. However, Otis continued to entertain the audience with his peculiar charisma and unique wrestling skills.
The storyline of Otis and Mandy Rose’s love story became a big part of WrestleMania 36. But the things that surprised the fans and critics was his victory in the Money in the Bank ladder match. With this win, Otis firmly established himself in the WWE. He always had the support of the fans and now he had the backing of Vince McMahon. So what are Otis’ thoughts on 2020 becoming a year of reckoning for him?
“It has been crazy. A rollercoaster ride. The biggest thing in wrestling is momentum and I just want to get the things rolling. If you would have told me in 2019 that Heavy Machinery’s Otis will get the opportunity to catch the briefcase, I wouldn’t have believed it. I was a rookie in the match and you don’t know what comes in at the match,” Otis told Hindustan Times in an exclusive interview.
“I always believe that the harder you keep punching, you are going to get something back. It could be 10 years or even tomorrow. Luck is also an important part of life, specially for a blue-collared solid man like myself.
My mentality has always been to get things done sooner rather than later in terms of work ethic. I don’t have a plan to how to cash it in but I am a good man. I am not going to do it as some people have done it in the past, like when wrestlers are down and out. I am going to do it when the guy is fresh.”
One of the biggest weapons in Otis’ arsenal is the caterpillar. The WWE Universe erupts as soon as Otis starts his move. He recalls how the ‘caterpillar’ started and when it caught on with the audience.
“It started a long time ago with school dances. It was really hard for me to talk to girls. I was sitting there by myself during a school dance in 4th grade. I watched Scotty Too Hotty do the worm and he was one of my favourite. So I just made up my mind and did that move and the whole place went crazy.”
“Even as a small chubby kid, it was impressive for myself to do that move. Nowadays it plays as such a great tribute to Scotty and we cannot call it the worm any more as I am more plum than a worm. So I used to call it the caterpillar. The popularity was slow, nothing gets popular overnight. Earlier it was like what is he doing. But now it’s crazy. That is why I really miss the crowd.”
“Every time I do the big squisher and the guy falls, the place goes crazy. Fans keep showing us love and I can’t thank them enough for that. They give me the energy to do that at the end of the match, it picked up slowly like the character Otis. It is what is like being a professional wrestler. You do what is given and hope that the fans love what they see. I just being who I am and I am blessed to be in the position.”
Watch Otis in action every Saturday live on WWE SmackDown on Sony Ten 1 and Sony Ten 3 channels from 5.30 am IST and other WWE Blockbusters daily at 8.00 pm
