Cards on the table; I'm not an Ilja Dragunov fan and part of that is his face. He looks like a Young Conservative with a triple-barrel name who came through the Leicester City youth academy, and I don't even have anything against Leicester City. He also has some of the sillier silent movie facial expressions in the entire pro wrestling landscape, and that covers quite a bit of ground considering WWE in particular have everyone making hammy faces and leaning into overwrought dramatics. But it's been ages since I've watched him and my brother said I'd probably like this since I liked Gunther/Sheamus from Cardiff (which was an amazing live experience in the stadium). Dragunov still makes some ridiculous Nicolas Cage Wicker Man faces and weeps after one nearfall like the stepchild of Ohtani, but most of his stupidity was fine and at a couple points it maybe even worked for me. It can be hard to capture a sense of FIRING UP~ to push yourself through punishment without it coming off ham-fisted or goofy, and Dragunov is definitely goofy but the one big screamy moment here didn't feel wholly cliché and instead he looked like a snarling wee fuckin goblin maniac who was prepared to go to hell and back. It didn't hurt that WALTER's onslaught felt like it absolutely necessitated someone going to hell and back in order to survive. Dragunov was four shades of red and purple with one side of his chest about 80% blood blister by the end, he had a cut on his forehead from a previous match with blood crusting around the edge of it, had welts on his shoulders and neck, it looked like he'd been mauled. Which he had been, I guess. It might be the stiffest match in WWE history and certainly up there as the most violent that didn't include thumb tacks or barbed wire or Mick Foley getting yeeted off a cage. The chops to the chest were vile and then WALTER would throw even harder ones to the neck and upper back. Dragunov's Torpedo Moscow never looks great but he supplemented it by full force elbowing WALTER in the back of the head and neck, a couple of those shots being plain bonkers. I liked Dragunov's strategy from the start, actually. The early parts reminded me of Fujiwara/Maeda with this thresher of a man who could end you with a strike flurry and the smaller man having to be prepared to counter-hit at every single moment. When counter-hitting didn't work he'd just grab WALTER and throw him, but these weren't pretty throws and WALTER made him work for every one of them. As far as underdog babyface getting obliterated performances go I definitely bought into Dragunov by the end and was right behind him getting the win. So that's pretty cool, right?
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