Ilja Dragunov isn’t pointing fingers at anyone for the end of his WWE run — but he’s not pretending it felt right, either. Speaking to The TakeDown on SI, the former United States Champion admitted he could feel something shifting inside WWE long before his contract expired in August.
Ilja Dragunov (Credits: Ringside News)
The Comeback That Came With a Gut Feeling
Dragunov described the final stretch of his WWE career as a “very complicated” period. The ACL tear that sidelined him happened, as he put it, “in the most unexciting way possible” — and he poured everything into rehab. “I worked myself through rehab and was training very hard, and was very dedicated.”
The payoff was immediate: he won the United States Championship basically on his return, calling it “an awesome, memorable moment.” But once the title run ended and he moved into whatever came next, the atmosphere changed. “After I dropped the belt and I was going through my next performances, I felt in my gut things are different.”
“I’m a Gentleman” — No Blame, But No Regrets
Dragunov made it clear he holds no grudge after spending seven years with the company. “I don’t blame anybody. I’m a gentleman and I have way too much respect for the last seven years — the most of my 20s — that I spent with the company.”
Still, that gut feeling pushed him to ask hard questions. “Is there more? Is there a new air I can breathe?” He previously told Ariel Helwani that at some point WWE simply had no creative for him — a crowded roster and full storylines left him waiting while his contract ticked toward expiration. When negotiations happened, “there was nothing I felt was satisfying and nothing that gave me the perspective of, like, ‘Okay, I MUST stick with here.'”
It wasn’t one failed negotiation or a dramatic fallout, then — just a slow realization, starting the moment the championship left his waist, that his future was elsewhere.
Also Read: Ilja Dragunov Reveals the Real Exhausting Part of Wrestling — And It’s Not the Moves
Source: Ringside News — read the full story there.
