DALLAS -- For Santino Marella, the third time certainly wasn't the charm, as his third match with Umaga resulted in the Samoan Bulldozer walking out of Raw as the new Intercontinental Champion.

It was just eight days earlier at Vengeance: Night of Champions that Marella faced Umaga's wrath for the first time since their fateful clash in Milan, Italy on April 14, where Marella stunned the world by pinning the Samoan Bulldozer and claiming the gold. He tried to do it again at the Night of Champions, but Umaga was too much. Fortunately, Umaga was too much for the referee to handle as well, as the Samoan Bulldozer was disqualified for ignoring the referee's instructions and continuing to brutalize Marella in the corner.

Unfortunately for the champion, Raw in Dallas wasn't much better. Talking to Maria before the bout, the champion said "I have to defeat Umaga on my own…because if I don't, I don't deserve to be Intercontinental Champion."

But that victory wasn't in the cards for Santino. Umaga was on the offensive from the opening bell, using his savagery and power advantage to brutalize the Italian champion. Things looked up momentarily for Marella after Umaga ran himself into the ringpost, but the Samoan Bulldozer quickly recovered. After dropping Marella with a vicious Samoan Drop, Umaga followed up with a nasty Samoan Spike to get the winning pinfall.

Now that Marella is no longer Intercontinental Champion, the question becomes where does he go from here? The Italian Superstar stunned the world by winning the gold in the first place, but defeating Umaga even once has proved to be a tough task for almost everyone who has tried it. Will Santino have to start from scratch and work his way up the ladder again?

Immediately after winning the title, whispers circulated in the locker room that Santino didn't even deserve to be a WWE Superstar, let alone WWE Champion. Now that he no longer has the one thing that made him a WWE Superstar in the first place, is his job security in question?

Only time will tell what the Italian warrior's future holds.

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