It’s well known that Jim Cornette isn’t a fan of modern wrestling and regularly condemns WWE and AEW for their products. It could easily be believed the former Smoky Mountain Wrestling owner hasn’t enjoyed a match post-1995; however, he recently watched the NXT UK Championship match between champion WALTER and Ilja Dragunov and would take to Twitter to praise the 25-minute war.
If you haven’t yet seen the match, you need to go out of your way to watch it on the WWE Network. It features a level of aggression and violence you would never expect to see in WWE. Dave Meltzer gave it his highly coveted five-star rating in the latest edition of his Wrestling Observer Newsletter, although he did state he was hesitant to do so due to the brutality.
It is unfortunate for WALTER and Dragunov that being on WWE’s NXT UK brand means the match won’t get much attention, although that is a big part of why they could have the match they did. This was when the pairs sixth singles match against each other, with their first taking place in Germany’s Westside Xtreme Wrestling back in 2016. All their battles have been highly rated, but to gain praise from both Jim Cornette and Dave Meltzer, who in 2020 have polar opposite opinions on what is good wrestling, is noteworthy.
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