Jin Tala went into the WWE Performance Center with one dating rule already drilled into her head: don’t date another wrestler. Then Ilja Dragunov told her that her strike was “s***,” started helping her with wrestling, and eventually asked her to dinner while she somehow had no idea it was a date.
While speaking to Women’s Wrestling Talk, Tala revealed that she and Dragunov have now been together for roughly a year and a half to two years.
“So, there is a few moments that I really started loving it and one of them has to do with, like, my relationship. So people know now that I date Ilja Dragunoff and we’ve been together for almost—I don’t know—a long, longest time, like a year and a half, two years maybe, somewhere around there.”
Funny enough, getting into a relationship with another wrestler was pretty much the opposite of what Tala planned to do when she arrived at the Performance Center.
“So, it’s actually pretty funny because, you know, we’re all told at the PC, ‘Don’t date another pro wrestler.’ And I was like, ‘Got it, coach.’ You know, like, I really—I was there about business. I was there about work entirely.”
That plan started falling apart during an open-ring session. Tala was working with Tamara Mensah-Stock and practicing strikes when Mensah-Stock noticed Dragunov nearby. Considering what Dragunov’s offense looks like, asking him for some pointers made plenty of sense.
“I was at an open ring and he was there just, like, working out and stuff, and I was working around with Tamara Mensah-Stock and we were working on strikes.”
“And she was like, ‘You know who would be a great person to ask about strikes? That guy over there.’ And then she, like, goes running over to him and was like, ‘Ilia, can you help us with strikes?’ I was like, ‘Sure.’”
Dragunov came over and asked to see Tala’s forearm. He wasn’t impressed.
“So he comes over and he was like, ‘Let me see it.’ And I gave Tamara a forearm and he was like, ‘That strike was s***.’ That was the first thing he said to me. I was like, ‘Okay.’”
That’s one way to introduce yourself to your future girlfriend. Tala didn’t take it personally either. She had already watched Dragunov wrestle and knew how good his own offense looked, so she actually appreciated that he didn’t sugarcoat his advice.
“And I was like, ‘I’ve watched your stuff, Stand and Deliver. I’ve watched, like, you on NXT.’ Like, you know, he gave it to me straight.”
“And I was like, you know, I respect that because as somebody who, you know, makes everything aggressive, his strikes look phenomenal.”
That first interaction turned into Dragunov continuing to help her. Tala started asking him for wrestling advice, and somewhere in there, their relationship started becoming something more.
“But he was helping us with our strikes and stuff like that. And, yeah, I think that’s kind of—I don’t know why that started our relationship, but I remember, like, asking for his advice and stuff like that.”
Then came Dragunov’s attempt to actually ask her out. He initially suggested getting coffee and talking about wrestling. The problem was their schedules. Dragunov was coming back from television while Tala was still working the packed Performance Center schedule given to newer recruits.
“Originally he had asked me out for coffee and talk about wrestling, but I think he was coming back from TV and he was like, ‘Yeah, it’s really actually hard to, like, figure out our schedules,’ because I was also on a pretty, like, rookie schedule where I had to be places at the PC, like, most of the day.”
Coffee wasn’t happening, so Dragunov tried dinner instead. Tala still didn’t realize what was going on.
“So he was like, ‘Oh, how about dinner?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, okay. I mean, I guess that’s the only time.’ And I’m very naive, so I was like, ‘Oh, like, yeah, we’re just going to be talking about wrestling at dinner.’”
She genuinely thought Ilja Dragunov was scheduling a nighttime wrestling discussion. Someone else finally had to tell her.
“And I remember telling—I think it was, I think I was telling Deina Tepa about that, and she was like, ‘Lee, I think that’s a date.’”
“And I was like, ‘I’m not sure.’ Like, and she was like—well, because we were—I was, like, finishing up at practice. It was like 7:00 p.m., like after open ring.”
“And she was like, ‘Yeah, well, shower and, you know, wear something nice.’”
Turns out, Tepa read the situation considerably better than Tala did: “And then sure enough, it was a date. So, yeah.” The relationship also ended up pulling Tala much deeper into wrestling. Dragunov began showing her old-school matches, European wrestling and performers she had never watched before, and she became fascinated by how quickly wrestlers she’d never seen could make her care about what they were doing.
“But he showed me all of this old-school wrestling and things that I’ve never watched before outside of WWE and European wrestlers, and I was, like, so intrigued by all the different stories I was seeing, like all that they were able to create in these matches.”
“And, like, I knew nothing of these people before and yet they were invoking these emotions out of me, like, in a matter of like 12, 15 minutes. I’m like, ‘How can they do that?’ Like that, you know, like I felt all of the types of emotions from a match. And I was like, ‘If I could create something like this for people and have them react to my matches that way, like, that is honestly amazing.’”
Watching Dragunov himself became another part of that education. Tala was fascinated by how much aggression he could bring into a match while still maintaining the control needed to keep wrestling safe.
“And the other part is watching Ilia wrestle. Like, watching Ilia wrestle, the aggression and everything that he brings to the table, but then is still able to come home and, you know, do other things and just enjoy life and come home safely.”
“But that’s the magic behind wrestling, is like that balance between the aggression and the fight and then somehow, you know, still keeping it safe and convincing.”
So much for “don’t date another pro wrestler.” Tala went from getting her forearm absolutely buried by Dragunov to asking him for advice, unknowingly accepting a dinner date and eventually building a relationship that’s now approaching two years.
What do you make of Jin Tala and Ilja Dragunov’s unlikely start — and Dragunov opening with “that strike was s***”? Let us know in the comments.
Please credit Ringside News if you use the above transcript in your publication.
