October 17: How Ilja Dragunov went from WWE United States Champion to All Elite in one calendar year

WWE/AEW

At last night’s AEW WrestleDream pay-per-view event in Orlando, Florida, the latest member of the AEW roster was officially unveiled, that being the Mad Dragon, Ilja Dragunov.

There had been a lot of speculation about Ilja’s future following his WWE departure in August, with many expecting him to ultimately land in AEW.

For Ilja, the past year has been a very interesting one, with October 17 of both 2025 and 2026 marking major career landmarks for him.

Ilja Dragunov’s return from injury

Ilja Dragunov suffered a torn ACL competing at a WWE live event in the Summer of 2024, which ended up keeping him out of action for over a year just months after his call up to Raw from NXT.

Ilja would make his return to the ring on the October 17, 2025 episode of SmackDown, answering Sami Zayn’s United States Championship open challenge and defeating Sami to win the title, his first and only title win on the main roster.

The decision to have Ilja defeat Sami was reportedly a pitch from Sami himself, with him hoping to make the Mad Dragon in his first match in over a year.

Ilja would hold the title for two months, himself hosting US Title open challenges before losing the gold to Carmelo Hayes on the December 26 episode of SmackDown.

Post-United States Championship booking

Things immediately started going wrong for Dragunov the second the referee’s hand hit 3 and declared Carmelo Hayes the new United States Champion.

Ilja would only sparingly be featured on SmackDown in the month of January, though it wasn’t until the Royal Rumble that his booking became a noticeable issue.

In a spot that many now see as the beginning of the end for Dragunov in WWE, Ilja would rain chops into the chest of Brock Lesnar during the Royal Rumble match, with Brock simply laughing off his offence before tossing him out of the match.

Sure, it’s Brock Lesnar, which would have made the spot not as bad if it was one isolated incident, but the story of Ilja’s offence being no sold continued in the following weeks on SmackDown, when names like Tama Tonga and Tonga Loa, who was released from WWE 2 months later, started also no selling Ilja’s offence.

This led to a storyline on SmackDown where Dragunov began to ‘doubt’ himself, with Carmelo Hayes attempting to bring out the ‘real’ side of Ilja.

This led to a match on SmackDown in early March where Hayes beat Dragunov clean to retain the title, with Ilja only making one more appearance on WWE television before then, that being the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal where he was eliminated in the middle of the match by Aleister Black, who would be released from the company a week later.

WWE departure & AEW debut exactly one year later

Ilja was kept on ice for the next four months, with him not making a single appearance on WWE television following WrestleMania 42, which led to fans questioning where he was.

WWE had clearly been made aware earlier in the year that Ilja would be leaving at the end of his contract, which led to him being made to look weak before being left off TV altogether.

Ilja’s departure from WWE was confirmed in August, and fans began to grow impatient waiting for the Mad Dragon’s next move.

Last night, in a strange twist of fate, Ilja’s very bizarre career year wrapped back around, as on October 17, 2026, the Mad Dragon officially became All Elite.

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• wwe
• Ilja Dragunov
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