Thunder Rosa Believes Ilja Dragunov And Ridge Holland Injury Angle Has To Have A Big Payoff

Thunder Rosa comments on Ilja Dragunov and Ridge Holland’s recent injury angle on Tuesday’s WWE NXT.

Thunder Rosa addresses Ilja Dragunov and Ridge Holland’s recent injury angle.

On the December 19th edition of WWE NXT, Ridge Holland and Ilja Dragunov met in a non title main event matchup. The match was a hard hitting affair, with Ridge at one point hitting a spike DDT on the champion. Following this move landing, Ilja would begin to receive medical attention, selling a possible neck injury. He would then be stretchered out of the WWE Performance Center as the match was ruled a no contest.

While speaking on the latest episode of Busted Open Radio, AEW’s Thunder Rosa commented on the angle, noting that she believes WWE are playing with fire with regard to the injury angle.

“When you have to run angles where it’s very close to reality, his opponent was the one who was in the ring when Big E got hurt, and he got hurt fairly badly to the point where it’s a career ending injury. It got intense because people were calling him all kinds of stuff, he probably even got death threats. For me, personally, there are certain things that have to have a big payoff and I think you have to be in the ring and you have to sign it with blood. When you’re playing with fire with someone who already has a bad track record it’s going to be difficult. If they label him as an unsafe worker, they then do this and it turns out to be true what else are they gonna do?” she said.

As noted by the former AEW Women’s World Champion, Holland has previously been at fault for several injuries, including injuries sustained by Big E and Elton Prince.

Fightful Select recently reported more information about the recent injury angle, including the reaction to the angle internally in WWE.

For the full results from this week’s episode of WWE NXT, you can read them here.

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