Grayson Waller looks back on wrestling Ilja Dragunov.
The Aussie star spoke about the Mad-Russion during a recent interview on WWE Die Woche, where he recalled their showdown under the NXT banner back in 2022. Waller begins by calling the former NXT United Kingdom Champion a terrifying individual.
Ilja’s terrifying. Ilja is actually terrifying. There’s something wrong with him. I don’t know what it is. There’s something wrong with his brain. I wrestled him last year on NXT, and I spoke to Carmelo Hayes this morning about it. When you get across from Ilja, there’s an energy that you see in his eyes, you see in his movements, that this is a different bloke. You can’t go in there and joke around with him. He’s not that kind of guy. You know you’re getting in there and you’re going into a fight, and everything’s gonna hurt. It’s not gonna be a fun experience. I don’t think anyone goes in and goes, ‘Oh, that was so fun.’ There’s nothing fun about wrestling Ilja Dragunov. I think [Carmelo Hayes] found that out.
Waller continues…
Everything he does is so intense. Even backstage, you might see him the day of your match, and five hours before the show, he is as intense as he is when he goes out there for the match. So I think Ilja is a very talented guy, but he terrifies me. He’s crazy, man. He’s legit insane. I could never have him on the talk show because I don’t think he gets joke. I don’t know if he has jokes. I don’t think even know if he laughs. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him laugh. He’s gonna have great skin for the rest of his life. He won’t have a wrinkle because that brother never laughs.
In a separate interview, Waller took more shots at the Rock and invited the Great One to attend this weekend’s SummerSlam premium live event. You can read about that here.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)
