AEW star Thunder Rosa wonders if WWE’s decision to put “WWE NXT” star Ridge Holland in an injury angle is a smart move, considering his past history.
Holland, who recently returned to “NXT,” laid out “NXT” World Champion Ilja Dragunov this past week, injuring him in the process. The angle is reportedly part of a storyline, which references Holland injuring Big E on “WWE SmackDown” last year. Thunder Rosa, in her recent appearance on “Busted Open,” questioned the storyline as she feels it could put a label on Holland as a bad worker.
“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,” the AEW star began. “It got intense (on X) because people were calling him [Holland] all kinds of stuff, probably even got death threats, who knows.”
She feels that having such controversial injury angles could hurt a character’s gimmick, especially for someone who has hurt a fellow star in the past. The AEW star added that if it is an angle, the two did an amazing job. But, she hopes that Holland has a big “payoff” from the angle because she’s not pleased to see the nasty comments that have been directed his way.
“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,” she said. “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?”
