Ilja Dragunov says that the expressive part of wrestling is ‘the real exhausting part’ of the industry noting that it is harder than moves.

Dragunov is a performer who has never shied away from being expressive in his pro wrestling career, and it is a part of his all round package that fans commonly point to when discussing his abilities in the wrestling industry.

While speaking to the Battleground podcast, Ilja Dragunov spoke about the importance of being expressive in what you do in professional wrestling, and how it is ‘physically exhausting.’

“It is definitely the part of expressing yourself. It is the vocality. It is the expressions. This part of portraying what you’re doing is at times much harder than any move that you can do. Like this pressure that your body handles. You’re screaming out when you punch, when you get hit. You constantly focus to include the audience, to have this roundabout vision at all times, it is extremely exhausting, and also, it’s not just comes down to what’s the next cool looking thing that I can do. It’s like, how do I handle what happened right now to me? How does it change me as a person during this beautiful fight that I’m expressing, during this play with my opponent? That’s the real exhausting part, and it’s physically exhausting.”

Elsewhere in the same interview, Dragunov spoke about a potential rematch with Kyle Fletcher. You can read more about that here.