On Tuesday’s episode of NXT, WWE did a storyline where Ridge Holland “injured” Ilja Dragunov.
This incident was a reference to the real-life injury Holland was part of when Big E suffered a neck injury in 2021 during their SmackDown match.
AEW’s Thunder Rosa shared her thoughts on the angle on Busted Open Radio.
She said: “When you have to run angles when it’s very close to reality … his opponent, of course, 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 an ending career injury. It got intense (on X) because people were calling him [Holland] all kinds of stuff, probably even got death threats, who knows. For me, personally, there are certain things that … they 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 and they then do this and it turns out to be true, what else are they gonna do?”
