Former WWE star Ilja Dragunov made his AEW debut at WrestleDream 2026. Fans in attendance erupted when the Mad Dragon’s music hit, and Tony Khan will seemingly make him a massive part of the company. Furthermore, he is destined to win the AEW World Championship.
Ilja Dragunov is quite active on social media. The former WWE star shared a GIF from his WrestleDream entrance a few hours ago. Furthermore, he broke his silence in the caption with one word.
“Soul 🤌🏼” he wrote.
The Mad Dragon’s entrance definitely hit his soul, and he is ready to take his career to the next level. He was under WWE’s banner for seven years, where he achieved moderate success. Even though he held the United States Championship once and the NXT Championship once, the Stamford-based promotion never made him World Champion.
Dragunov could become AEW World Champion sooner rather than later. His in-ring debut in the company could happen again against the reigning champion, Will Ospreay. Their potential clash will tear the house down.
Tony Khan was unsure if Ilja Dragunov would be ready for AEW WrestleDream
At the WrestleDream post-show media scrum, Tony Khan revealed that the process to make Ilja Dragunov ready for the pay-per-view was unpredictable. He was unsure until this Wednesday night if the former WWE star was appearing on the show or not.
“Thanks to the process, it can be an unpredictable process of acquiring a visa. It’s something that I wasn’t sure until this Wednesday night, during a live broadcast, that I would be able to bring you. It’s a great surprise, and it’s something that I was so pleased that we were able to do tonight There is a lot of unpredictability in wrestling and a beautiful thing that happened for us is, on Wednesday night, in the middle of the show, at two in the morning your time, we got the message that Ilja was going to be able to pick up the visa the next day. We found that out during the live broadcast,” she said. [H/T: Fightful]
Let’s see what Dragunov does in All Elite Wrestling. The possibilities are endless.
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Edited by Debangshu Nath
