Tama Tonga responds to Dave Meltzer over Ilja Dragunov social media post

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Photo by Rich Freeda/WWE via Getty Images | WWE via Getty Images Tama Tonga stirred some controversy with a recent social media post that featured footage of Ilja Dragunov during his time in WWE. The video showed Tonga no-selling chops from Dragunov before laying out the Russian-born star. While the post itself seemed fairly innocuous, the timing of it got fans talking given Dragunov’s recent high-profile move to AEW. View this post on Instagram The post also drew a response from Dave Meltzer, a veteran wrestling journalist who himself is often a lightning rod for controversy. Addressing the video on Wrestling Observer Radio, Meltzer seemingly insinuated Tonga may have been instructed by someone at WWE to share the footage. “I don’t know if he was trying to get brownie points or someone told him to do it. I couldn’t tell you,” Meltzer said. He went on to compare the post to a “playbook out of the ’80’s” used by promoters like Bill Watts and Ole Anderson, who would use footage on their programs of wrestlers being beaten once they began working for another company. On a livestream, Tonga responded directly to the wrestling journalist’s claims, while throwing in some digs along the way. “Yeah, I seen Dave Meltzer talk about my post…I put out a post on Dragunov. It started stirring some s**t. Am I the only who thought that was good?” a laughing Tonga said. “Great Uncle Dave over here said I took it from a playbook. Playbook? I don’t even read a playbook, bruh,” he added. Tonga also seemed to accuse Meltzer of saying he got information from people inside WWE. “‘I got sources inside WWE.’ Nobody said s**t. Lying ass Davey boy, just making up s**t,” Tonga said before stating that “wrestling news guys” have sent him direct messages to ask if it was true that WWE directed him to post the footage. “You know what I say [to journalists]? Get the f**k out of here,” he said. Before Uncle Dave gets on his podcast he needs to take a 15 minute nap before he gets on" "I got sources inside WWE, nobody said sh*t, lying ass davie boy just making up shit" "Them wrestling news guys be in my dms asking me "if this is true" you know what i tell em? GTFO" -… pic.twitter.com/KlrVJSRrql — FADE (@FadeAwayMedia) October 21, 2026 What do you think, Cagesiders? Do you think Meltzer may be on to something with Tama, or do you believe the WWE star? Let us know in the comments.