Many were concerned during WWE NXT as Ilja Dragunov seemed to suffer an injury. It’s all part of an angle, but how did officials react?
WWE NXT Ilja Dragunov’s Injury Angle
During Tuesday’s show, the WWE NXT Champion was hauled off on a stretcher out of the arena. This was after a DDT Ridge Holland laid on him.
As Holland has been a part of accidental real-life ring injuries, some fans were concerned. The silver lining in all this is that this is simply an angle.
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It’s a play-off the real-life incident that involved the New Day’s Big E. During a SmackDown match in March 2022, Holland attempted to hit Big with an overhead belly-to-belly suplex outside the ring.
Unfortunately, he did not get enough height on it. Big E ended up landing on his head and suffered a fractured C1 and C6.
Big E has been out of action since. There’s also a good chance he may never wrestle again.
WWE NXT Ilja Dragunov’s Injury – Backstage Reaction
As per Fightful Select, WWE NXT producers are happy with how the injury storyline has played out on TV. Not just by the performance of both Dragunov and Holland, but also by the filming of the segment.
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In addition, they are also happy with the shocked response from the silent arena crowd. The report notes that producers felt the crowd would realize the injury was “storyline related” by how fast tapings moved to the December 26th show, which was filmed after the December 19th one.
Some fans are upset with the storyline, which makes sense. Big E may have suffered a career-ending injury at the hands of Holland, and the WWE is seemingly looking to capitalize on that.
Plus, Holland faced a ton of backlash in the aftermath of the Big E incident. Still, thankfully Xavier Woods came to his defense on X/Twitter and told fans, accidents are a part of wrestling.
