Ilja Dragunov says he could feel something changing in WWE well before his contract actually expired. After fighting his way back from a serious ACL injury and immediately winning the United States Championship, Dragunov says things started to feel different once that title run ended — and that’s when he began wondering whether he needed a change.
Speaking to The TakeDown on SI, Dragunov looked back at what he described as a “very complicated” period of his career. A huge part of that was recovering from the ACL tear that kept him out of action and putting everything he had into getting himself back into the ring.
“It has been a very complicated time for me because, you see, I came back from an ACL tear that happened in the most unexciting way possible. I worked myself through rehab and was training very hard, and was very dedicated.”
All that work initially seemed to pay off in a huge way. Dragunov said he essentially won the United States Championship as soon as he returned, and he still looks back on that moment as something special.
“I came back, and I won the United States Championship basically on my return, which was an awesome, memorable moment.”
Things didn’t stay that way forever. Once Dragunov dropped the championship and moved into whatever came next, he started getting a feeling that his situation inside WWE had changed.
“But then certain times, like after I dropped the belt and I was going through my next performances, I felt like — I felt in my gut things are different.”
Dragunov isn’t pointing fingers at WWE or blaming any particular person for that feeling. In fact, he went out of his way to stress how much respect he still has for the company after spending seven years there and giving WWE most of his twenties.
“And I don’t blame anybody. I’m a gentleman and I have way too much respect for the last seven years that I — the most of my 20s — that I spent with the company.”
Still, that gut feeling was enough to make Dragunov start asking himself some pretty big questions. Instead of automatically assuming WWE was where he needed to remain, he began wondering whether there was something else waiting for him outside the company.
“But I felt like it is fine for me and reasonable to ask myself, ‘Is there more? Is there a new air I can breathe?’”
Those comments add more context to what Dragunov previously revealed about the final months of his WWE run. He had already explained to Ariel Helwani that there came a point when WWE simply didn’t have creative for him, leaving him waiting for another opportunity while his contract moved closer to expiration.
“Again, everything I can say is not as exciting as people made it. Of course, at some point in time, you don’t have creative — you’re just waiting for the next opportunities to come.”
Dragunov said WWE’s crowded roster and already-full storylines were part of the situation. Eventually his contract expired in August, and negotiations between the two sides didn’t produce anything that convinced him he absolutely needed to stay.
“Everything I can say is there was nothing I felt was satisfying and nothing that gave me the perspective of, like, ‘Okay, I MUST stick with here.’”
The latest comments help pinpoint when Dragunov’s thinking apparently started to shift. It wasn’t simply his contract expiring or one failed negotiation — after returning from his ACL injury, winning the United States Championship and then losing it, he could already feel in his gut that something had changed.
What do you think about Ilja Dragunov admitting he could feel things were different in WWE after losing the United States Championship? Let us know in the comments below.
