In a new interview with Fightful, Ilja Dragunov spoke about a wide range of topics including gimmick matches.
The WWE NXT Champion explained why he’s not a huge fan of these types of bouts.
“I must say, first of all, I’m not the biggest fan of those kind of matches. Because, like you said, I consider my fists, my legs, everything, my body as a whole as my major weapon, you could say so. They’re the things I like to use majorly. I really only can say that I entirely enjoyed it. I have a high pain resistance. There’s nothing that can easily really bring me down to, ‘Oh, this is something I can’t take.’ So that barely ever happens. Especially this match, it just brought another layer to everything. I think this match especially was a great one in the case of the story that led up to this match and make it reasonable, make it suspenseful. I think, especially certain moments in this match, I felt some moments for the next four weeks. They really made some people, when I re-watched it, really feel uncomfortable. I think that’s the purpose of this match, the purpose of the story. So I really like to remember this performance.”
