Ilja Dragunov is expected to sign with AEW, according to Fightful Select, though nothing has been signed yet.
Sean Ross Sapp reports that AEW has been the plan for some time and that the remaining hold-up is administrative, with final details still being worked out. Fightful has not confirmed that Dragunov has signed a contract, and says only that he is set to join barring something unforeseen.
The reason for the delay, per the report, is immigration rather than negotiation. Fightful says a number of the wrestlers who have left WWE this year from outside the United States have been dealing with visa expirations or visa complications, and that this has slowed their free agency. Dragunov is among them.
There is also a question over what he can be called. Ilja is his given name, so that side is straightforward. Whether he can use Dragunov is less clear, though he wrestled under it before WWE.
The report is a more confirmed version of what Fightful was saying three weeks ago. At the time of his exit, the outlet reported that industry sources expected him to end up in AEW but described it as a hunch rather than anything concrete, and said nobody within AEW had heard that a deal was in place. That report also noted the visa question was live, with sources saying he should have no trouble finding work if he wanted to stay in the United States. A European promoter quoted in the same piece thought he might go back to PROGRESS instead.
Dragunov left WWE in August when his contract expired. PWInsider reported the departure on August 20, having seen him removed from WWE’s internal roster that week, and WWE moved him to the alumni section of its website. He chose not to re-sign. Dave Meltzer reported in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the two sides had been far enough apart on money that WWE stopped using him on television from April, and that the internal assessment was that he was a great worker but not someone who moved numbers at the money he was asking for.
Because the deal expired rather than being terminated, there was no 90-day non-compete. He has been free to sign anywhere since August 20 and has not appeared for anyone.
His last WWE television appearance was the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal on the April 17 SmackDown, won by Royce Keys. His last singles match was a loss to Carmelo Hayes on March 30. He had returned the previous October from a torn ACL suffered in a live event match, which cost him more than a year, and answered Sami Zayn’s open challenge on SmackDown to win the United States Championship in his first match back.
The absence between April and August went unexplained inside the company as well as outside it. Fightful reported that several wrestlers had reached out to him over the summer after noticing he was off television, including people he had been training with, and that none of them had been told anything about his situation.
He signed with WWE in February 2019 and debuted on NXT UK that May, where he became NXT United Kingdom Champion and built the rivalry with Gunther that most people know him for. He moved to NXT in Orlando in September 2022, won the NXT Championship in September 2023, and was drafted to Raw in 2024.
He built his reputation in wXw in Germany, where he appeared at an event in Hamburg in May, and at PROGRESS in the UK. Sources at wXw told Fightful his WWE exit came as a surprise to them and that they had expected more from his main roster run than it produced.
AEW has not commented. Nothing about a signing has been announced by either side.
This is just a snippet of the story. For complete details, please visit Fightful Select at Patreon.com/Fightful.
